"Dave Cornwell" wrote in message
...
jbm wrote:
Nothing to do with the weather, but continuing the bird theme, I thought
the bird lovers would be interested in this.
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I thought you were going to say when it grabbed the handle that it started
to mow the lawn for you!
I have had many similar close encounters with Robins in my garden. I've
even had them feeding mealworms from my hand. They are very tame and
associate gardeners with disturbing the ground and thus revealing food.

We are plagued with pheasants here. 5 or 6 years ago a local large estate
stopped shooting them
although they continued to breed them for another couple of years. Up until
last winter, a group
of them were daily visitors, arriving every morning to be fed, often feeding
out of
my hand in the winter. This year they have been mature enough to breed and
have
proudly returned to show me their chicks. The chicks have no fear of me and
to the
consternation of their parents, as soon as I open the back door in the
morning, they are in,
all over the kitchen looking for food. I can understand their parents being
partly tame,
as they were probably raised by hand. But the chicks are wild birds; they
exhibit no
fear of humans if they are not threatened and if we treat them as sheep and
cattle would.

Phil
Northern Highlands of Scotland, 40 miles north of Inverness