New sparrow behaviour

[gen2]

In the post below about blackbirds, Cetti mentions birds learning new behaviours. This year I have noticed a new behaviour from sparrows. Some of them hang upside down from the washing line to give them a head (and body) start when diving in to a vacant port on the seed feeder. They usually turn up as a flock of betweeen 12 and 20 and feed from the peanut feeder and fat-ball feeder as well as the seeds, but the latter remains their favourite but has only 2 feeding ports - hence the queue. Has anyone else got sparrows hanging by their feet below washing lines?

[Drusilla]

You are so lucky to have sparrows, gen2. I live in London and have only seen two in my garden all year. They used to be everywhere, but sadly they seem to have experienced a massive decline. I think I'll experiment with the type of feeders you describe.

[logman]

Re sparrows, in my garden they number 0 but i am lucky enough to get a good number of woodland birds and in times of bad weather, i've seen some of the usual ground feeders, apparently driven by their hunger to learn the art hanging on to nut feeders etc to get much needed food. So far i've seen chaffinches, robins, and long tailed tits "catch on"

[Cetti]

Ours are still in training gen2. Not having a garden big enough for trees I've just started hanging a couple of feeders at the end of the washing line and the sparrows are trying their best to copy the blue tits...and failing miserably. Yours are definitely in the olympic league, a couple of mine are eating upsidedown, but for the remainder it takes all their courage to actually make it to the feeder let alone do the splits!

[shaneystar2]

I have a huge sparrow family in my garden ..so comical to watch. We have an old curly willow tree which is past it~s best and really should be cut down but they all congregate in there so it looks like it will have to stay .The branches are ideal for the bird feeders and fat balls.I have a peanut feeder on each end of a pergola type thing and they all queue along the top or stand there waiting if I have been so lax as to not do a refill quickly enough !!

[Robinia]

My sparrows have gone one better gen, they're firing themselves from little cannons to get to the feeders first.
hehe sorry just trying to outdo shaneystar & Cetti!!

actually they hide in the privet hedges when I put out the food - as soon as I'm a safe distance away their heads pop out & then it's every man for himself!!