Visitors

 

This pheasant visits us every day. I don't always see him but I'm sure the spot under the seed feeder is part of his daily round. I call him Herbie. He is difficult to photograph as the slightest movement spooks him and even though he mostly walks, he is pretty nippy on his feet.

There were other visitors these past few days which is why I've not been blogging. Mick and Linda (co-grandparents) from Norwich were staying. There were some doubts if they'd be coming because of Covid but as we're all double-vaxxed and boosted and tests were taken prior to flying it all went ahead. I'm glad they came as Martha and Evie would have been very disappointed not to see them.

Anyway, all went well, the girls stayed too so we watched a lot of movies, Peter Rabbit 2 and another one called The Croods which I'd never heard of. Then, as if that wasn't enough screentime, Mick and Linda took them to the cinema yesterday to see the latest Ghostbusters.

The co-grandparents headed back to England this morning and overlapped with yet another visitor. Swisser had dropped Rex off as she's working in Bradford for a couple of days. I'd forgotten this arrangement and didn't see her. I came downstairs to find Rex in the sunroom and Mick fresh out of the shower. He said, 

There's another dog. I don't know where it came from.

A Flock of Tree Sparrows

 

So I got my wish. That pair of tree sparrows that turned up at Hannah's last April stayed, bred and multiplied. Back then I was excited to spot them, and more excited when the young ones started to appear.

Now there are fourteen (at least) of them and they are champion scoffers. Seed feeders are emptied in a couple of hours and they do tend to hog them. The tits manage to get a bite to eat but I worry about the finches. I'm looking at setting up a sparrow free site at the back of the yard. More bird feeders are needed.

Now, if anyone reading is from Northern Ireland you will know that all adults here were able to apply for a SpendLocal card worth £100 to help local businesses recover from the Covid lockdowns. Bert and I gave a lot of consideration as to where we would use ours. Wanting to get into the spirit of the thing, we decided to spend our windfall in locally-owned shops. I was explaining to Bert what he needed to do.

All you need to do, the first time you use it, is enter your pin number into the card reader and afterwards, you can use contactless.

He said,

I don't even know what any of that means.

And I realised, he has never used a card reader in his life. He was going to find it difficult to spend his largesse as spending for spending's sake is not his idea of a fun time. 

Then we looked out the window. As usual, the feeders were hooching with tree sparrows. I'd already bought three more seed and fat ball dispensers from Montrose with some of my SpendLocal card. It was obvious what Bert needed to do.

The next day we went to Broughshane and spent Bert's entire card on seed, peanuts and sunflower hearts. Now I need to look into the feeders that sparrows cannot access to give the finches a chance.

Did I mention that tree sparrows are also messy feeders and drop lots of seed on the ground? We've got a gleaner who deals with that. We call him Herbie.

Solace and Sorrow

Is there anyone who hasn't turned to the natural world for comfort during this awful pandemic? Even though the frigging virus is also a part of that same natural world. 

I was feeling really flat yesterday and forced myself to go do some polytunnel pottering to cheer myself up when I heard the pheasant squawk. 

Must go fetch the camera and see if I can capture it. Will be a change from my millions of pictures of finches and collared doves. But when I got back the pheasant had turned into...

...a hare! The first one I've ever spotted around here. I took a few quick shots then fetched Bert. He just managed to see it before it disappeared into the wood. He said it has been decades since there have been hares in these fields. 

It really cheered me up to have seen it and I spent a contented half-hour sowing nasturtiums and beans. 

No more sightings or squawks from the pheasant so I decided to take a dander towards the wood, camera at the ready. No pheasants here, just a quick glimpse of a red fox disappearing into the trees. No photograph to prove I saw it. No time. Now I was even more delighted. Until I considered that, although Fox is a beautiful animal, it will be hungry and pheasants and hares may need to take care.  

It is only a small sorrow that the fox might eat the foolish pheasant. It would be a rare thing if it killed an adult hare but foxes will kill and eat entire leveret populations. 

Bert and I were discussing this when he remarked,

Y'know, I haven't seen any buzzards around for a while. I wonder if some sheep farmer is poisoning them?

Last week we'd found a dead buzzard at the edge of the wood which Bert thought might have been poisoned.

My mood plunged. What if someone was systematically poisoning the buzzards? I felt hatred towards that someone. And couldn't stop dwelling on it. The country is full of sheep at the moment and some sheep farmers believe that buzzards kill newborn lambs. They don't, although are known to feed on dead or stillborn lambs. 

So there we are. Nature isn't all primroses and songbirds. It's horror and death and bastard farmers flailing hedges, cutting down trees and poisoning birds of prey.

 

I did eventually see that stupid pheasant. But not today. When I told Hannah about the fox she said,

Oh good! There will soon be some interesting bones in the wood.

I called her a ghoul.

Hannah's shrine of bones

 

The buzzard's feet

Red dot: dead buzzard

White dot: Hannah's bone shrine

Blue dot: Where the hare sat

Orange dot: The fox