ayearinthelife

By ayearinthelife

Stool Pigeon

It’s the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend so, after topping up the various feeders, we settled down for our allotted hour to see how many feathered visitors we got.
Last year our total was......zero! Normally, at any time of the day, you can look out either front or back and see birds on the feeders. But for some unknown reason, during that one hour of the weekend last year, not a single bird visited our garden. My theory is that they know what we are doing, so by hiding they can appear scarcer than they really are, thus the RSPB will continue to encourage us to provide food for them. Mrs C believes that because this is Birdwatch weekend, the birds know that all sorts of goodies will be put out in other gardens to tempt them to land there. If you ate burger and chips at the same place every day, and then discovered that for one weekend you can get steak and roast spuds for the same price at the place next door, well you’re going to tempted aren’t you?
Being more realistic, I did wonder if the sight of me armed with notebook and bird identification cards, framed in our large lounge window, had put them off landing to feed last year. So today, whilst Mrs C settled in to the corner of the study to observe the rear garden, I positioned myself in the kitchen, with the blinds slightly drawn in order that I could see the birds in the front garden, but they might not see me.
And it sort of worked. Only five minutes in and these two pigeons appeared. Unfortunately, they were so settled that they pecked away at the bounty on offer for the next thirty minutes. And despite several other birds flying overhead, the presence of two big pigeons seemed to put them off coming to land - the RSPB rules say you can only count them if they actually land, especially galling as at one point I counted sixteen Jackdaws on the roof of a nearby house!
So....do we submit survey results of two pigeons (and a blackbird which briefly landed on the road outside, so I’m counting it!) or do we have another go tomorrow and see if we get better results?

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