Now that autumn is well under way, my garden birds are becoming very active around my feeders.

Sunflower hearts are the favourite food for most birds but the old-fashioned peanut fare seems to have fallen out of favour.

Niger seed is best for goldfinches but they have completely vanished from my immediate area and I don't know where they have gone.

Blue, great, coal, long tailed tits and my local robin are constant visitors and this autumn I have welcomed back a pair of nuthatches after a three year absence.

Essentially a woodland species, the ancient name for this bird was 'nut hack', and this seems more appropriate for the picture shows a nuthatch literally hacking to pieces a nut on my garden fence.

They usually perch on the feeder upside down and being rather feisty birds they can be a little aggressive and point their dagger like beaks at any other species hoping to alight on the feeders. But they don't stay long so all the birds gain a fair share.

However, there is a definite pecking order with great tits at the top followed by the robin then blue and finally the little coal tits.

Fortunately parakeets have given up trying to alight on or access the nuts.