Parental Posturing

The Canada Geese on the Figgy have two new arrivals, so when the Swans started getting a little too close dad gave them what for. Then promptly realised they were a lot bigger than him. And there were two of them. Full credit for effort though.

My year UK bird photo list today hit 97 different species as I got a Red-Breasted Merganser and House Martin today (yesterday I'd added a Tree Sparrow, only the second I'd ever seen, but it appears they frequent my mum's garden, and on Saturday Sandwich Terns). The Figgy was actually swarming with Swallows, Sand Martins and the now-arrived House Martins. Wonderful sight.

Tonight, watching Foxes Live (with the cat intent) a fox headed through the garden right on cue, not long before they showed a fox being killed because it happened to visit a garden where a guy kept exotic birds. Yip. A perfectly healthy fox was shot for doing something natural, to protect some wholly unnaturally caged birds (not that it was eating them ind, but 'worrying' them). We've got things really screwed up in our heads us humans. We've got the chooks, it means the foxes come all the time - it's our responsibility to make sure the birds are safe in a way that doesn't deprive another animal of the life it is perfectly entitled to.

Then again there was the mummy determined to drive away the foxes for the safety of her kids, rather than realising how little threat they actually pose (c'mon, given how many urban foxes there are, if they were dangerous then we'd be hearing about it all the time (as well as my usual point in these things that 3,000 people die in motor vehicle incidents a year and we somehow manage to shrug that off as one of those things)); instead she preferred to instil a fear of the natural world in her kids. Way to go.

Speaking of natural world, Foxes Live, presented by a vet and with a number of other vets appearing as experts, is in pretty stark contrast to the latest BBC extravaganza, showing wildlife around the world with... Richard Hammond leading the way. Richard Hammond. That well-known wildlife enthusiast and environmentalist... The BBC can do these things well, like the Borneo programme with all the scientist and wildlife camera folk showing boundless enthusiasm married to incredible knowledge of their subject. But like David Tennant (who I otherwise like) voiceovering the Birds in Flight show, rent-a-face cue-card reading just feels detached, and I wind up losing interest and switching off. Is it too much to ask for someone who just knows the subject to be put in front of the camera? It's not as if we're lacking wildlife bods in this country...