Bird table manners, or how some birds are more equal than others.

At least that's the rule in my garden. I have a bird table, which I delight in. I keep it well stocked at all times with birdy titbits (US: tidbits...)which I purchase at great expense every time I go to a certain shop. (Great expense being a huge exaggeration, but still,even bird food costs money...)

Well, you will understand, then, why I don't particularly want to feed the Big Birds round these parts: pigeons.

Pigeons of every sort used to come to eat at my table. They would inevitably leave the table bare, for pigeons have no sense of measure, or of fair play, fair share, or anything fair, I expect. They are the fat cats of the bird kingdom, and even the beautiful wood pigeons, and even the wonderful turtle doves are way over the top when it comes to table manners. They frighten the little birds and -let's not mince words- they are frankly gluttonous!

Well I had enough of that, and I wanted to watch the little birds from my kitchen window, or from my bedroom window. So I devised a cunning plan...I knitted a sort of fine netting barrier all around my bird table, out of fine green plastic covered metal wire (- the kind I used to make scoubidous, when that was all the rage...I still enjoy making them, and it is something to do with your hands when you give up smoking by the way...) Close bracket...

And then I started to have wicked fun: in order to get "into" the table, the big birds used to first land on its roof and then do a perillous sommersault onto the platform immediately below. So, true to their good old habit, they kept coming, one by one, landing on the roof, leaping overboard, and....then....hitting the wire netting, and...falling! My word, it WAS funny, even thought you may think me cruel for laughing at another creature's misfortune..it really was funny. With the tinyest bit of anthropomorphologism, you could plainly see the vain fellows strutting as if nothing had happened, while all the while thinking "what the hell was that?". When the second pigeon took a tumble, there were two of them on the ground, shaking their head as if all was fine...The scenario repeated time after time, until the whole pigeon population of my neck of the woods had taken a fall! Then they noticed that if they landed hard enough, they could still shake a bit of grain onto the lawn, and that, I will allow, as it does leave enough fodder for the others.

Some still land atop, and look, and look, and look...cocking their neck, trying to find an angle, no doubt. I know they are cross with me, the proud inventor of this fiendish Tantalesque punishment...but, frankly, my dears, I don't give a d...

Since then, I have counted up to ten small feathery things on the table. They flutter, they feed their young, they preen themselves, they relish most of the grains on offer. Theydo turn their nose up at the slightly out of date- a bit rancid-but not too disgusting-sesame seeds that I had added to the mixture, I notice.

The bird book and the binoculars have once more come into their own, and I am fast becoming an expert in not quite recognising species, and their young...but having fun in the process. It is a good life when you have time to watch the birds!

However, my triomph has been somewhat short lived, and back to the drawing board I must go , for this morning, horror of horrors: not one, but two turtle doves, head to tail were pecking at the little ones' fare...I did chase them. They were a bit slow in flying away, what with all the wiring they had to negotiate, but still, I think I must improve my design. Oh that I knew how to post photographs onto this site!!!!You would laugh at the design of my new contraption, discreet though it may be...

Is there a moral to this story? I can't really think of one, but if you do, please, do let me know!

With much love from this selective bird watcher,

Jocelyne

PS Did anyone notice that I wrote this in pigeon English?