Watching my charm of goldfinches

Ihave just been watching the goldfinches at my bird feeders. They truly deserve their collective noun, a charm. Here in Liverpool Cathedral Close we have charm upon charm of them. They fly twittering from tree to tree, looking for all the world like a mass breakout from some nearby exotic bird aviary. I now have three feeders hanging in our little back yard: part of my cunning campaign to lure the birds of the Close from the garden of a former Mrs Dean, who lives next door, to my own. Mwa ha ha! (That was my evil megalomaniac Mrs Dean laugh, in case you were wondering.) So far it’s shaping up nicely. I have one feeder with mixed seed for wild birds, one feeder with shelled sunflower seeds for lazy birds (honesty compels me to admit I was given this one by the very neighbour whose birds I am busy stealing. Oh, burning coals upon my head!), and one gigantic feeder full of niger seed for the goldfinches. The latter was given me by a member of the congregation keen to fan the flames of the duel.

Until last week I had never heard of niger seed. Being a modern kind of gal, I Googled it: ‘Guizotia abyssinica is an erect, stout, branched annual herb, grown for its edible oil and seed.’ There you are. You may now go to your local garden centre and enquire in a hootingly posh voice, ‘Do you sell Guizotia abyssinica seed? I believe it to be an erect, stout, branched annual herb, grown for its edible oil and seed.’ It has yellow flowers — as some of you may already know, if your birdfeeder is suspended above your lawn. I went to Rivendell on Saturday and bought some. Middle Earth might strike you as rather a long way to go for birdseed, but we are lucky enough to have a High Elvish settlement just outside Widnes. I found a nice big bag of niger seed for £6.99, just by the lembas aisle. And it’s true what they say: the goldfinches go mad for it. These small agile birds use the feeders, while the stouter birds lurk at ground level Hoovering up any seeds that are scattered to the floor. My fear is that at one remove I may end up feeding the local cat population.