counting coots

I shall diligently risk my Chalfont’s by sitting on a cold step for an hour while watching not much in the name of science (kinda) this weekend because it’s the RSPB Garden Birdwatch thingy. Last year I got about a dozen species, and expect no more than that this year – but there is nothing a patch birder likes more than being forced to watch not much in the name of science. I’ll put some bread out, and hope that the Starlings can get down quick enough before the Woodpigs clear it all up. Bring it on!

Like so many urbanites, putting food out for birds just makes the squirrels fatter, and what they leave behind just brings the rats out. The foxes don’t get much of it so they just raid the bins, leaving them open for the Woodpigs to clear up. I cut a coconut in half and hung it from the tree in the garden the other Sunday (as they were going for 57p in a nameless large supermarket) and the squirrels have stolen them. Completely vanished. Bitten through the string and gone. I doubt if the local Tits even got a sniff of them. Utter bastards.

As an aside, last summer I tried to ‘discourage’ the Woodpigs to leave the garden (did I mention that I detest Woodpigeons?) by use of a water pistol. Of course I had not thought this through properly and when they got squirted, they just quizzically looked at the sky, wondered where the rain was coming from and carried on scoffing bread until their bloody gizzards where totally extended. Utter, utter, bastards.

Ok, have a picture of a Cormorant ‘giving it some’ taken this lunchtime by a man that is outsmarted by pigeons.