Nature watch with Ron Freethy

YOU don't have to live in open countryside to enjoy the delights of the natural world.

As reader Ruth Martin reveals in the following letter, you can attract plenty of wild visitors to a humble back yard if the conditions are right. Ruth, of Woodbine Road, Blackburn, writes:

DURING the winter months I have been feeding starlings on a bird cake of fat, muesli and wild bird seed.

Every morning they sit and wait on the wire of the telegraph pole behind the back wall.

There are between 15 and 20 now but during the coldest months I counted as many as 33.

Is this a record for a back yard swoop in a built-up area? I have also been visited by magpies and pied wagtails feeding on the scraps dropped on the ground by the messy feeding habits of the starlings.

Another daily visitor is a robin but last week I saw two feeding together.

As they are territorial, I presume they were male and female.

I have not seen two together since.

Only one still comes to feed, which confirms my thinking that they were a pair and have now found a place for nesting.

Could the single robin be the same one that has visited for the last few years?

I am not sure how long they live.

I have also had a wren over the last few years.

Is this the same one? The cotoneaster berries have been plentiful this winter and provided food for a male and female blackbird, the female being the more frequent visitor.

Crows and wood pigeons fly over every morning from nearby St Silas's Church and Billinge Woods but it is the birds in my own back yard that give me the most pleasure. Given the right kind of food, even the presence of a cat -- I have five -- will not deter them.

THIS letter is illustrates perfectly why birdwatching is a wonderful hobby which can be enjoyed, literally, in your own backyard.

Ruth's letter poses a number of questions.

Starlings are resident in the area but in winter they are joined by large numbers of migrants from Scandinavia and Northern Europe to avoid their cold weather.

Ruth almost certainly saw a mated pair of robins and she asks how these birds live.

All birds live longer than you think but many get killed when very young because they are not initially very clever at avoiding danger.

Young robins would fall victim of Ruth's cats but once they have learned how to avoid them the crafty ones can live for more than 10 years. Some sea birds live for more than 50 years, while parrots often live until they are more than 100.

The message is clear --never buy a parrot unless your grandchildren are bird lovers.