A matter of taste

We, as humans, all have our own preferences whether it be food, fashion, music, lifestyle or whatever. It wasn't until this week while watching the sparrows in the garden that I realised that they too have their own preferences.
Where they drink is one example. I have a cast iron tailor made bird bath which I bought earlier this year and although I clean it out almost daily, it has some rust inside and is prone to green algae growth where it sits in the sun for part of the day but is only occasionally used. Further up the garden, on the patio, I have a large tub which contains a miniature water-lily, a couple of other small pond plants in pots and an oxygenator weed. This is where most of the sparrows prefer to do their drinking and bathing and I even had to fit a piece of wood across like a bridge so that they didn't fall in!
I watched them on the seed feeder too and I buy a mixture which is 'ready to eat' as it has no outer husk to remove. It contains various things like millet, sunflower seeds, corn, other seeds and some dried mealworms and other assorted insects. Some of the sparrows actually pull out the seeds they don't want and drop them on the ground where I have a large plant saucer so that I don't get a build up of uneaten bird food. This can then be emptied onto the bird table or thrown away and usually it contains a lot of the small millet type seeds.
Recently I have also been putting some breadcrumbs on the bird table because they have a lot of youngsters, who are now feeding themselves, but I have discovered that they prefer wholemeal breadcrumbs to the white ones, probably because the wholemeal is home made!
Even Squidge the squirrel prefers his peanuts despite me leaving the occasional apple core and bits of carrot to add variety to his diet. He likes to munch on some of my roses instead! I suppose the petals are quite sweet and juicy to him.