I'm a Crazy Bird Lady!

I decided 2017 is going to be the year when I cut down on time-draining activities and get out there and do things the make me happy instead. How many hours did I lose to social media, re-runs of Friends and general procrastination in 2016? A half hour of vegging out in my pjs here, 20 minutes of browsing Pinterest for nothing in particular there...it all adds up!

When 2017 hit, I deleted my Facebook app. Instead of sitting through every soap opera my mother insists on putting on the TV in the evening, resisting the urge to gouge out my own eyes, I've started using that time to get into a good book. Time that would have been spent scrolling through websites, building imaginary shopping carts of clothes I know I'll never actually buy is now spent heading out for a walk.

I'm spending my time on the things that make me happy and recently I realised that one of those things is birds.


Before Christmas a robin started popping up in our garden. Who doesn't love robins? They spread Christmas cheer!

This particular little chappy became a regular visiter, even flitting in and out of the garage while my Dad was working in there and making himself quite at home. We decided to pick up some bird food for him and left it within perfect view of the living room so we could watch him coming and going.
Before long, a couple a sparrows joined the party and I'd find myself standing at the kitchen window for half an hour at a time, watching the cluster of little birds hopping along and pecking up the food.

Within two weeks we had a make-shift bird table cobbled together out of what my Dad had lying around the garage. All those old time-wasters - Facebook, Pinterest, Judge Judy - were completely forgotten. I had become totally engrossed in watching the birds.

I find myself jumping out of my chair at the sight of my old friend the robin and have flung myself (much like a madwoman) out of the window at the sight of my neighbours' cat prowling the garden, shrieking "He's after my birds!"

I am a full-blown crazy bird lady.

I've even gone ahead and ordered myself the RSPB's free Big Garden Bird Watch pack. It's the world's largest wildlife survey and helps the RSPB to get a snapshot of how the UK's birds are doing. I'll be helping out my friends the birds and I'll get a couple of goodies too! The pack comes with a 24 page booklet, a sachet of bird-friendly coffee, a coaster and (most importantly) an identification sheet so I'll finally be able to put names to the faces of all the weird and wonderful birds that have been visiting my garden! If you're a nature enthusiast (even if you're just a clueless novice like myself), it's definitely something worth getting involved in!

Who would have thought something as simple as a handful of birdseed on a plank of wood would bring me so much happiness? Of course, I would be that much happier if I could work out a way to deal with the recent invasion of pigeons. At first I had an 'everyone's welcome' policy, but it turns out pigeons are the bullies of the bird world.

Time to upgrade my roughly-built bird table for something a little bit more pigeon-proof!