Mystery Attacker Bumps off Pigeon
Sometimes bad luck takes more than one form and what is mild irritation for one, turns up as catastrophe for another, as in the case the unwary wood pigeon, tempted by the peanuts in my garden. For this unlucky bird, bad luck took the form of the bolt from the blue. Well I think it did but I can’t be sure, you see, I didn’t see it any more than the pigeon did.
Not very clear? I’ll explain. Last Saturday was the RSPB bird count day. In my case this entailed an hour at the upstairs bedroom window, cat firmly by my side, peering out at a laden bird table.
The usual everyday stuff flutters in, a handful of chaffinches, the customary squabbling greenfinches, and then five, or was it six, long tailed tits dash past, nothing to excite the rabid twitcher. The only rarer visitors are a pair of brambling overwintering in the plum tree, and a rather cocky bull finch.
Sometimes bad luck takes more than one form and what is mild irritation for one, turns up as catastrophe for another, as in the case the unwary wood pigeon, tempted by the peanuts in my garden. For this unlucky bird, bad luck took the form of the bolt from the blue. Well I think it did but I can’t be sure, you see, I didn’t see it any more than the pigeon did.
Not very clear? I’ll explain. Last Saturday was the RSPB bird count day. In my case this entailed an hour at the upstairs bedroom window, cat firmly by my side, peering out at a laden bird table.
The usual everyday stuff flutters in, a handful of chaffinches, the customary squabbling greenfinches, and then five, or was it six, long tailed tits dash past, nothing to excite the rabid twitcher. The only rarer visitors are a pair of brambling overwintering in the plum tree, and a rather cocky bull finch.
Forty five minutes into the bird watch and I’m getting bored, with nothing in the garden now except three obese woodpigeons, plumped to perfection on the last few greens left in the vegetable patch. Normally their appearance would have me running up the garden waving my arms, but I let them be, and tick them off on my list.
A quick cup of tea is what I need. Stopping the timer I dash down to the kitchen. I swear I was gone for just a few minutes, but back to my post I find a completely empty garden, the only evidence that any birds have ever visited, a pile of pale grey feathers neatly ringing the bird table, one or two still drifting softly in mid air.
And I missed it. Some great big bird of prey snaffled one of the woodpigeons and I wasn’t there. The only bit of avian excitement since I saw the chiff chaff last summer and I was out of the room. How do I know it was a bird of prey? Well for once the cat had an alibi, and on close examination, many of the feathers had definite beak shaped chunks torn out.
Perhaps I should have ticked off eagle after all, but we don’t get many in West Sussex, and there’s the further quandary, should I enter two woodpigeons or three?
A quick cup of tea is what I need. Stopping the timer I dash down to the kitchen. I swear I was gone for just a few minutes, but back to my post I find a completely empty garden, the only evidence that any birds have ever visited, a pile of pale grey feathers neatly ringing the bird table, one or two still drifting softly in mid air.
And I missed it. Some great big bird of prey snaffled one of the woodpigeons and I wasn’t there. The only bit of avian excitement since I saw the chiff chaff last summer and I was out of the room. How do I know it was a bird of prey? Well for once the cat had an alibi, and on close examination, many of the feathers had definite beak shaped chunks torn out.
Perhaps I should have ticked off eagle after all, but we don’t get many in West Sussex, and there’s the further quandary, should I enter two woodpigeons or three?
