There are a number of innovative ways that have materialised in the last few years for feeding birds in the garden. One of these that seems to have increased in areas around Inverness is a simple basic approach. People are sticking whole apples on trees by piercing them with the sharp end of a twig somewhere along the lower branches. In most cases, as far as my garden is concerned, the main birds attracted to the apples seem to be blackbirds. One of the reasons I like to watch them is because they attack the apples with such enthusiasm almost as though it is to be their last feed. There is also the opportunity of looking at all the varying plumages from the males and females to the younger and more juvenile birds. As with many garden birds at this time of the year the blackbirds may not be local as many come in from the continent for the winter months. Blackbirds are also very aggressive and if the apples are too close together there might be so much squabbling neither bird gets the time they need to feed.
Other regular birds at the apples are chaffinches and blue tits but for some reason I have not seen great tits at them. Then there is occasionally a different bird and one of the more regulars ones is the fieldfare. Interestingly these only seem to appear in very small numbers at the apples, sometimes only one bird may be there. This is surprising considering how gregarious this bird is normally. What surprises some people is the colour of these birds seen at such close quarters. A rare visitor is the blackcap and here again this is not going to be our local ones but birds from the Continent. Then just occasionally there is a rarity, a brambling. With all these birds and others in the garden, I place the apples with three aspects in mind. One is the ease with which the birds can eat them whilst another is nearby shelter from predators such as domestic cats. The last reason is sighting the apples with photography in mind. It is not only the distance that can be critical but also the fact of whether the subject will be in good light and there are no other twigs or branches in the way of the photograph. Some of my best photographs of birds have been taken in the garden such as the brambling, a male in winter plumage, in a garden near Inverness.
One of the birds attracted to such apples is the waxwing that has been the subject of a mass invasion this year starting in Scotland then over the weeks moving southwards into England. There was much publicity about their occurrence in the Northern Isles and one photograph that made many national papers was of waxwings feeding on apples. To start with the birds fed from apples stuck on trees but then there was a different photograph. A youngster had put apples on the end of branch and then held it out and the photograph showed the youngster plus branch and apples in his hand and the waxwings at the apples. Whilst this was superb photography the reason the waxwings were so tame could have been twofold. Obviously one was the fact that the birds were hungry. The other that most people did not realise was the origin of the birds. They could well have bred in the vast forests of in the extreme north east of Europe which means they may not have seen a human being before.