Or perhaps that should be a confused bird lover .

I’ve written at some length about my little robin friend and his nightly bathing regime outside the kitchen window. What I haven’t mentioned is his bird bath.

During the summer months it is a very large earthenware plant saucer, which gives him plenty of room to splash around. However, in winter, when the water freezes, I’m always worried that the saucer might crack, so around this time of year I change it for a plastic dish which is much smaller and completely expendable.

And so I did this change a couple of days ago, because although the days had been sunny, the nights had been cold and the water had frozen.

During these sunny days the bird activity in the garden has been particularly intense. There have been birds everywhere, mostly sparrows, but a few blackbirds and of course the robins.

I haven’t put my bird feeder out yet, so I put some bread on the lawn just to keep the little guys going, and each time they cleared it up, I obliged by putting more out. I just love to watch them.

The forecast then changed to wet and windy. I thought I’d put more bread out for my little friends. Unlike the previous days it just stayed there in the middle of the lawn and by teatime was just a sodden mass of soggy bread. I didn’t see a bird all day. What’s that about? I can understand them not liking bad weather any more than we do, but they still have to eat.

It wasn’t until it was just going dark that I saw the robin, flitting between the bird bath and the soggy bread. Which brings me on to his confusion.

He landed on the table outside the kitchen window, just as normal. He looked at his new bird bath, and flew off. I saw him repeat this on several more occasions, and again the following evening. Not once did he hop in for his usual splash about.

This happened the following night too. Doesn’t he like it? Is the size wrong? The colour? Granted, it’s not the winter one that I usually use, this one is a bit bigger and bright red in colour. In actual fact it’s an upturned frisbee, but I thought it was just the job. May be I’m wrong, if he doesn’t use it soon I’ll have to change it.