Ōtautahi / Christchurch Daily Photo

For the last six or so weeks I’ve been feeding the waxeyes using a wine bottle feeder I got from a market. I recently realised the bellbirds have found it. I’m rewarded with bellbird song almost all day long – they are never that far away. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that when the bellbird comes down the waxeyes give the bell bird a healthy distance. I’ve never seen the bellbird be aggressive, but it ‘s probably 2-3 times the size of a waxeye, so it’s probably wise of them to get out of its way.

Today, I bought the new nectar feeder with the red base – which is red to attract the birds. Someone suggested to me it might be awhile before the birds trusted the new feeder. I hung the feeder up, walked back inside, stood looking out the kitchen window for maybe two minutes, and saw the first waxeye on it. As you can see from the photo above, the new feeder can fit quite a lot of waxeyes and it wasn’t long before word got around.