Blackbird gymnast goes for gold…

This blackbird (Turdus merula) flings itself at the bird fat and pecks off chunks…

What’s that they say about the Olympics? Faster, higher, stronger?

This blackbird in my garden has got into the Olympic spirit, exercising on the bird fat for weeks in the run-up to the London 2012 Games. Its technique is to hurl itself at the fat and knock pieces off, then drop to the ground to eat them. I think it’s a method copied from the magpies.

Many of the smaller garden birds can dangle acrobatically on the fat – coal tit, blue tit, great tit, long-tailed tit, nuthatch and greedy starlings. The robins sometimes sit on top and peck, but the sparrows and finches don’t even try.

Of the bigger birds, the adult great spotted woodpecker clings to the pole of the bird table and reaches across to peck the fat, while the young one does tackle the cage and hangs on tight with its tail.

Young great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)…

The secret seems to be youthful flexibility – the woodpecker pictured above is a juvenile, and so, I think, is the blackbird. And like Olympic gymnasts, one day they will find they are too old for this kind of thing…

Here are some more pictures of my garden birds…