Garden birding
A collision between two birds has Clare questioning her choice of pet
Clare finds it’s a case of ‘naughty by nature’ when it comes to the animals that visit her garden!
For quite some time now, I’ve been rather suspicious of cat owners who say they love birds. Perhaps that sounds a bit judgemental, but while I like to see birds in the garden, I don’t want to see them up close, dead on my doorstep and presented like a gift from a wellmeaning feline.
I’ve often wondered how those with cats cope with these offerings and how they feel when they return with a young bird. Is it something you just have to accept? Cats being cats and all that?
I don’t have a cat. I think they are cute but
I don’t think I could cope with their bloodlust.
So yes, there I was happy with my decision not to get a cat. The birds will be free to go where they please in my garden, I thought. But then something happened that made me wish the sparrows would visit someone else’s bird feeder instead.
One Saturday, just a couple of weeks ago, I let the chickens roam freely in the garden. We’ve got 10 now and I love to see the rescue hens digging and doing all the things that chickens who are not kept in cages should do. It’s uplifting to see. What was not uplifting was to find a sorry-looking sparrow under the Hazel tree.
I’m not sure what happened to him but his eye was red and swollen. I looked it up and the prognosis wasn’t good. It was either conjunctivitis or a pox and he couldn’t fly much. What would you do? Try and help or leave him to become a cat snack? I got an old towel and I wrapped him up, managed to give him a little feed and then flapped my arm up and down (I really did) to try and get him to fly off. Every time I did this, he responded with a short and sweet wingflapping demonstration then came back and landed on my arm, my leg, even my shoulder. It was cute, but I was worried – it’s surely not normal for a sparrow to be behaving this way?
After about an hour, he flew up that little bit higher and over to next door. I was
so happy! Isn’t nature amazing? I continued my day in good spirits. This was a mistake. Later in the afternoon, I went to feed the hens and heard a hideous noise that could only mean one thing, someone had caught a bird. I had heard that chickens are partial to a little mouse catching, but I had never witnessed the brutality of a hen who is running around the pen with a bird hanging out of her mouth. Until now.
You already know what I’m going to say, don’t you? It was the sparrow I’d looked after earlier that day. I was furious and upset. I couldn’t look at Miss La Fosse, the killer hen. Perhaps I should get her a collar with a bell on to give the sparrows some warning that she is on the approach. I called upon friends with pets to ask them how they felt when this happened and they explained that you just have to accept it’s in their nature. It’s not their fault. A fellow hen buddy urged me to go and cuddle Miss La Fosse and forget about it, which
I duly did.
As I write to you, I am sitting close to the chicken pen waving furiously at the sparrows who are just a little too curious. Maybe I am inexperienced and I’m coming across like a wally but isn’t it great to realise that, at the age of 38
(I know, I don’t look it. You’re too kind), there’s still plenty for more to learn?
We’ve had rain for about a week now and the golden days of autumn I talked about in my last column, are AWOL. This is great news for the Blackbirds, who are doing a little light landscaping in the front garden for me.
Do you like where I put the woodchip? No? OK, feel free to move it. Blackbirds are crazy little movers and vandals, too.
Almost daily, I return to my house to find the front bed by the door has been rearranged. In the back garden, the squirrel is digging up the lawn to bury all the hazelnuts he’s pinching. I’ve caught him in the act with one in his mouth and he invited me to take part in a staring competition. I let him win. All the animals around me, whether living here or just visiting, are up to no good, but it’s never boring.