Tuesday 17 January 2012

Messing about with mealworms




For Christmas I was given a book about Robins. I have always enjoyed photographing them so Wife P decided that I should know more about these cheeky little birds. The scientific name for our British Robin is Erithacus Rubecula Melophus so a it is good job that he/she does not have to wear a name badge of the bright red breast. I digress for this blog is about my attempts to entice our local rather shy Robin into camera range. The book says that mealworms are a Robins idea of heaven! So on to the internet and purchase a "tub" of them to be delivered first class as they are alive and wriggling. When they arrived they sure were "wriggling"... the suppliers must have run out of "tubs" for the 250gm of regular mealworms arrived in a well tied small sack containing hundreds of the little blighters in newspaper... the Sheffield gazette if I remember correctly. Now transferring them to a storage box should be relatively easy. Ha ha! working is a cool garage should slow the little blighters down. Did it heck, first they wriggled deeper into folds of the newspaper, obviously they like the news content! Then they started to overflow but finally all were captured and safely into storage box. Some desk research revealed feeders best to use. The little blighters will wriggle out of dishes so a steep sided contained, they do not like sunshine or rain so it needs a cover! The gap between cover and container determines size of bird that can feed so I "designed" and made a mealworm pagoda popped a few wrigglers in it and waited discretely for the robin. Yes, you have guessed right plenty of blue tits, chaffinches, the occasional bullfinch but no ROBIN! even the tame thrush tried






















2 comments:

  1. I love the pagoda... but not the mealworms! Hope the robins appreciate all the trouble you've taken for them soon!

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  2. Put the mealworms in the fridge with a handful of breadcrumbs :-) And with some patience a robin will take them from your hand, especially in spring when they have baby's to feed....

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