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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stephen Prower" data-source="post: 3584757" data-attributes="member: 115634">Etudiant1. I'm most sorry to have neglected your useful suggestions and question.2. Anti-Spooking measuresAs to photography, I did try sitting in the garden in a construction worker's poncho--a sort of mobile hide--but it got stuffy, and made it difficult to handle a camera. I certainly intend one day to put in a long session, and compare the yield of good photos with a similar session dressed normally.So I take my time, and remain as far as possible immobile, and sometimes sufficient birds eventually get used to me for me to get a couple of good photo-opportunities.That's photography.I am less patient when I just use binoculars, but the technique does work reasonably well, so long as I don't look at the birds for too long at a time.3. Skittishness of birds in UKIt's not possible for me to generalise.I notice that some other people, by contrast with me, locate their feeders close to the house, and even so the birds largely ignore them as they watch through the window. But at such a near distance, they don't use binoculars. And the object of feeding birds is usually not birdwatching but viewing the cheerful sight of bird acitivity.People are beginning to treat as a truism--or complain--in Britain that the protection of birds and animals causes their number to rise. A Carp fisherman complained to me the other day that Otter are the new Mink. Farmers complain to the newspapers that Badger numbers are rising to pest levels.In the bird world protection (or protection following reintroduction) has certainly caused the number of say Buzzards and Red kites to rise to such an extent that they are now in many parts of England numbered among the common 'background' species. Protection where effective does seem to lend a species also at the same time an increased confidence in the presence of man.But the skittishness of small birds in my part of the world has I think, rather more to do with high density, leading to aggression not just within species, but between species, than any lack of protection against man. Add Cats everywhere, Sparrowhawks overhead, and the Human airgunner as still a menace, albeit a minor one, and small birds have ample reason to be skittish!A high density is to be expected because Stevenage New Town where I live is a light-industrial town that was built from scratch after the war. It is highly planned, to a high standard, in particular a low housing density . It has, I believe, the highest proportion of woodland and parkland within its bounds of any town of its size in England.Most houses also, as a result of the low housing density, have small gardens. I think though that the average size is greater than the size of my garden.Without need of protection, the proximity of woodland and parkland to houses mostly with gardens (and I imagine many with feeders!), as a matter of the supply of breeding territories, and the supplement of natural food supplies, does make for a good population of woodland birds, as well as the species that are adapted to living alongside man.That's as far as I can go to answer you.Stephen</blockquote>

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