Early in the year I came to the conclusion that our three cats are now at the age where they prefer to lounge around, rather than chasing flying things, so indulged myself by buying a bird-feeding station, and a supply of bird-feed (a number of years ago I'd previously fed birds from a couple of feeders in the garden but what with one thing and another hadn't put out feeders for a number of years). Being early in the season when food was in short supply and they hungry birds hadn't yet started nesting, I quickly ticked off a fair few species (and some I wasn't sure of identifying which led to the purchase of a compact zoom camera (x30 optical), but that's another story). All went well until the arrival of the juvenile starlings which scattered feed they weren't interested everywhere, attracting a flock of feral pigeons, and scaring everything else off by their quarrelsome fighting over the fat-balls. They only seemed interested in fat-balls and sultanas, so feeding just that soon had the feral pigeons losing interest in visiting the garden. An occasional visit from a the odd gold-finch and great-tit when the starlings were busy elsewhere had me putting on my thinking cap. Leaving the feeding station as a starling feeder and putting out some feeders with niger seed and sunflower hearts at the other end of the garden as bait for finches and tits seemed to work, so much so that for the last few days I've consistently had specific bird types feeding on the intended feeders in different parts of the garden. A small flock of goldfinch are now semi-resident in the apple-tree, frequently visited by great and blue-tits, collard doves have their own feeder with a handy perch where they can dine on mixed grain. I've still got to work out how to feed the dunnocks without inviting the pigeons back, and the robin without setting up a competition with the starlings over the meal-worms. What is interesting is how like angling this all is. Putting out the right bait in the right place and time to attract the right species without being bothered by other unwanted creatures