Squirrel Alert!

It was a beautiful afternoon, unexpectedly given to me when two appointments were cancelled. Off to Mrs O’s garden!

The first of the grass seed was an inch high, so time to remove the plastic and let it breathe. Meanwhile the ground was ready for planting out a few perennials. Some had been standing out in pots all winter, so they too were ready.

As I tipped one pot over I was surprised to see a swollen root – but no, it was a peanut in its shell! This pot had been raised off the ground to get a little more winter sun; clearly a favoured cache. Sorry, squirrel, you’ve lost that nut!

Last summer the squirrel living in next door’s roof was often seen with peanuts in her mouth, shimmying up the drainpipe to feed the family. Mrs Turnstone had hung them on the washing line for the blue tits, but all disappeared overnight, string and all. But where had Mrs Squirrel hidden them? When I cut the ivy down on the wall and trellis  after nesting time I found the remains of her store, dry and safe from magpies.

The new owner has sealed next door’s loft, so let’s hope we are squirrel-free for the coming summer. I also found a blackbird’s next with the eggs eaten …

Mistletoe? No!

Mistletoe?

I must have had Christmas on my mind even to entertain the idea for a moment. Well, how could it be mistletoe, growing out of the brick arch just north of Peterborough? It looked the part at first sight: a spherical shrub, branching down as well as up, but it was our old friend Buddleia, beyond easy control above a railway track.

So what will take over the world when humans are gone? Buddleia, brambles, birch, briars? Rats, foxes, jackdaws, gulls, magpies? We’ll never know!

Extra Special Crows

28^th October

There are a few species of crow in Britain: the most familiar around the Turnstones’ home being Jackdaws and Magpies. In Cornwall, Jack is present along the cliffs as well as the quaysides, and is by no means totally dependent on crumbs of human generosity. There is another crow that inhabits the rock faces and narrow ledges, but not the carrion crows that we saw in numbers stalking the fields above the slate cliffs.

It was not wishful thinking. That is a crow, yes, but neither jack nor carrion crow. Mrs T saw its orange bill without prompting from her husband – a chough, no, a pair of choughs! They may be associated with Canterbury, but they do not live here, in fact, I’d not seen one since we sat at the top of the Great Orme, eighteen years ago. To bed with a smile once more!