20 DECEMBER 1957, Page 30

Country Life

By IAN NIALL

THE weather has a great effect on the number and sorts of birds seen in the gardens in the vicinity of the village -these days. Blackbirds always seem to out- number thrushes hereabouts for some reason, but both increase to a great extent when frost hangs behind hedges and stiffens the hitherto soft mud in the field. One looks ,for newcomers as soon as the weather hardens.. Open fields, being exposed to the wind, prove less hospitable to feeding birds, and starlings hang about the village until late in the day, leaving to feed in the open only when there is a thaw sufficient to permit their 'gleaning' across the pasture. They are never as ready to descend into confined areas as jackdaws, thrushes, tits, wrens, etc., and I am often puzzled at this wariness in starlings. They are molested only in cities and tree nurseries, I fancy, and yet they behave with the wariness of jays or magpies, whose inbred suspicion is well founded. Frost and an empty stomach change their attitude, however, and they reveal theMselves as arrogant bullies. The thrush and the blackbird give way to them, and they show no timidity in the presence of the jackdaw, although what the 'daw takes the starling doesn't try to steal. Size has a lot to do with things in the bird world, but for impudence the tiny bluetits are hard to beat. This morning they were first on the scene when a neighbour threw out bacon rind and stood to see fair play, a precaution that the 'vultures,' in the shape of waiting 'daws and starlings, looked upon without enthusiasm.