One of the great pleasure of my lovely new house is that there is a pretty tree and some shubs in the garden, outside of the kitchen window.

The tree is the PERFECT place to hang bird feeders!

I waste an awful lot of potential knitting time watching the birds and squealing when I spot a new species.  Too many species to list here but exciting sightings include green woodpeckers,  great spotted woodpeckers, fieldfares, nuthatches, ring necked parakets and a sparrowhawk.

Here’s a great spotted woodpecker, snapped from the kitchen sink,  pecking at  a fat filled coconut on the aforementioned tree…

“Very nice. What’s that got to do with knitting?”, I hear you ask!

Well…

I buy my birdy supplies online from the wonderfuly quick and efficient

CJ Birdfoods.

Whilst reading their latest catalogue of luxurious birdy treats I laughed out loud when I saw “Best Nest Wool“…

Your eyes do not deceive you.  The catalogue offers a bag ful of chopped up oddments of wool, in synthetic, organic or mixed varieties (like the birds will have preferences!) for birds to take to use for nesting material!

After my initial shock, I decided this isn’t as mad as it might sound. Birds collect scraps of sheep’s wool from shrubs and fences to line their nests. So why not from my garden? Also,  Thug and Mewsley have donated their excess fur groomings every year from their spring moult to the birds in a similar dispenser – many a blue tit has grown up nestled in Thug fur!

You can be sure that, as an avid knitted, this is one product I don’t need to buy.

I have however, started to keep all those little ends and scraps I trim off after making up a garment, in a bag at the bottom of my knitting  bag. Chopped up to short lengths of course, so the birds don’t get tangled in the yarn.

Come March and the nesting season, my garden birdies will have the finest luxury yarn lined nests…you never know – they might find a couple of twigs and take up knitting!