A Timaru man has found the trick to getting the birds eating out of his hands.
Bill May had been feeling nostalgic about quince jam, and after procuring the fruit, he had set about making some.
However, it did not taste anywhere as good as the memory.
So much so, the 82-year-old started feeding it to the local wax-eyes.
Mixing it with bread crumbs, lard, and grated apple he found the birds were not as discriminating as he was.
He said he had been sitting watching them eat one morning, when a wax-eye had flown down and landed on the side of his cup of tea.
‘‘It sat there and looked down and decided, ‘no that’s not particularly nice’.’’
Mr May said a little bit later on he felt something on his head, and instantly decided it must have pooed on him.
However, it was simply another brazen bird using his head as a landing strip to eye up his cup.
‘‘And I thought, well, I reckon if I just sit here quietly, over a few days, and get closer and closer to the source of food, they might get more confident.’’
Eventually, he had the bowl in his hand, sitting right next to the porch railings and they were landing on it and darting away.
After gaining their confidence he moved his chair away from the railings with the bowl and they would descend on him.
‘‘I go out the door and they arrive, they are expecting it, which is probably a bit naughty, you know.’’
Earlier on in the experiment, Mr May said there was the ‘‘most dejected worn out looking thing’’ who he had managed to stroke.
‘‘I fed him for two days and then he disappeared.’’
The birds would land on him, and often — after they had scattered food all over him — they would peck it off.
Mr May’s wife Jean, who died four years ago, was not so keen on feathered critters.
The couple had worked together at the now-closed Watlington Intermediate School.
He said she would be ‘‘horrified’’ to see him covered in birds.
Even a lone bird accidentally flying through the window into the house would frighten her.
‘‘She would have been out that door until it was gone.’’
He said he always loved birds, even as a kid he was often throwing a crust out to the birds on a frosty morning.
