Birds don’t live for ever

Since 2018 we have kept doves, but it took until the 2020 lockdowns for them to become part of the rhythm of our days with Nigel feeding them by hand and talking to them as they snaffled their dried peas and corn.

Being completely white, doves are difficult to distinguish from one another.  However, this anonymity has surely saved us some heartbreak. Doves are vulnerable to predators - their pale plumage makes them an easy target for our local sparrowhawks and peregrines and cats. Yet when we see feathers scattered on the ground (carnivore confetti) it is often hard to tell exactly which dove had been taken. 

One bird, however, has been our particular favourite - an excellent mother she has raised many chicks in our dovecote.  Over the years she has had two long-term partners with whom she has billed and cooed.  We could tell her from the others by a black feather below her eye, giving her the name Tear.  Every so often, Tear would vanish for a few days to incubate eggs, but now, for several weeks, she has not reappeared.

Similarly, it was during the Covid lockdowns that Nigel encouraged our garden robin to feed from his hand, and soon mine too.  The robin was always particularly friendly when feeding chicks.  He would look about him cautiously then swoop towards me.  Fluttering in midair, onto my fingers he would place his feet, looking as if they had been drawn with a sharp pencil. Swiftly he would tilt to peck a strand of suet from my palm, then make off with his haul to his nest in the bushes.

This year, he had raised one brood of round speckled robin chicks and was on his second.  As the nesting season wore on, he looked increasingly tired and shabby, and now he too has disappeared.

In both cases, we’ll never know for certain how they met their end, and there is a kindness in that.  It is good to remember both Tear and Robin as we last saw them, waiting on the patio for us to come out and bring them food.  To catch our attention Tear would peck at the window and Robin would tweet loudly. 

And now I think about it, perhaps it was they who had trained us, rather than the other way about.

Our Very Own Horror Story

You know it’s a horror story when somebody is murdered brutally in the prime of life.

You know it’s a really hard-core horror story when the murderer eats the corpse afterwards.

Or were they even dead before the killer began to devour them?  We’re not sure.

And what if it happens twice in the same location?

If this was The Bridge it would take me ten hours to tell this story, but since Saga Noren turned down the case I’ll have to see what I can do in 300 words.

The first incident took place two weeks ago.  I was weeding the pot plants under the bird-feeder.  Nigel and Perran were sitting on the other side of the garden.

“Look Clare.  That little robin’s watching you.”

Then suddenly, almost next to my head, a whoosh and a squawk.  Nigel and Perran both chorused “Sh*t!”.

Out of nowhere, a sparrowhawk had swooped on the robin, thus using the bird-feeder in a manner we never intended.  Although, as Nigel pointed out afterwards, it had at least fed a bird.

The second incident occurred at the front of the house.  An entirely charming pair of pink-beige collared doves had built a nest in the cotoneaster, forcing their way in amongst the thick growth with twigs in their delicate beaks.

I enjoyed their soft cooing and I kept watch as they laid their eggs and began to sit on them.

It was Nigel who saw the black and white cat running away and found the wrecked nest.  I haven’t been able to make myself look.

And this time, no wildlife benefited.

The real horror story is that studies have shown that on average each cat kills thirty-two wild birds and mammals each year. 

So when your beloved moggy passes on, please consider not replacing it.  Wildlife is under enough pressure.