“Behaviour trumps control.”
Dear Leader,
I was watching a charm of goldfinches. Messy eaters. But believe me, there is nothing “charming” at all about how these feathered chums chow down!
They descend on the feeder, flinging and throwing as much out across the garden as they consume in a wild finch-feeding frenzy!
Tits have much better table manners, politely taking one seed at a time. A robin also occasionally balances on the perch to grab a solitary seed before flying of somewhere to digest with decorum.
So, I placed a tray under the feeder to catch the overspill and give the ground feeders, such as the robin, a chance to alight and feed in comfort.
One morning, I am sat with my coffee watching the golden horde invade the tube, with the customary hail of surplus chaff and seed falling to the tray below. In that tray, however, stands two more finches: just as messy as those above, but now throwing the captured seed from the tray to the ground, regardless.
Completely countering the very purpose of the tray’s placement.
This is more than annoying as it was put there to prevent the ground from getting messed up and to protect the feeding rights of our Robin and the Dunnocks (not a garden soft-rock group!). Both plans now negated by this belligerent bunch of boisterous bad-mannered birds, hell-bent on trashing the joint and stealing everything for themselves.
Note to Self!
You can put in as many controls as you like to minimise mess, chaos, and general bad habits, but controls do not change behaviour!
Controls always have work rounds and bad-behaving individuals will always find a way to avoid or corrupt them.
Controls work if there is supervision and a means to enforce compliance. Otherwise, they will just be over-ridden by the nature of those they are there to control. If you want to change behaviour for the good, you have to educate.
Seeing that I am unlikely to succeed in opening a school for bird-feeding etiquette, it looks like I am stuck with cleaning up after them and hoping the robin learns to stick up for itself.
Living Life, Learning Lessons!
Live | Learn | Lead
