Red in Tooth and Claw

I came back saddened from my trip out to feed the birds this morning. Under the bushes I noticed an awful lot of feathers. It may have been a collared dove - I've lost those before - but the size and colour lead me to think that the woodpigeon who comes to hoover up every day has met an untimely death

I wouldn't mind so much if I thought he'd gone to feed a hungry urban fox, or a desperate hedgehog, but I know it'll have been a bloody well-fed domestic cat. They're on the increase round here as new families move in (don't they know the Council Rat Man is on top of the problem?) and much though I like cats, it's becoming quite a task to keep them out of the garden.

Ah well, a radical trim of the lower layers of the bushes is called for, so that the cats can't hide there.

On a lighter note, I found when I entered the Martock Bean Enclosure, that there are signs of new growth in every leaf axil. Fingers crossed, there may yet be beans aplenty to keep the Martocks off the endangered species list.

Martocks aside, I was still a little heavy-hearted when I got back to Stately Zip Mansion. But as always, I found a quick visit here was enough to set me off again with a happy heart.

Eek! A Mouse

It's been a busy day on the Estate, but in something of a sporadic way. There have been times when the grass, trees and shrubs were alive with tits, sparrows, siskins, blackbirds, jackdaws and wretched magpies. But for a short while every now and then, there's a quiet period. It was during one of these lulls in avian activity that I noticed the Mouse has returned. Rushing back and forth picking up cornflakes and bulgar wheat (I'm out of birdseed) and taking them away to wherever its nest is under the badly laid path. It's a fieldmouse, so I'm OK with its presence, and have even been charmed in the past by its creeping within two feet of me to eat. Maybe I don't pose much of a threat, being so much bigger and slower than it is, unlike the magpies, whose shadows are enough to make it scamper.

And I have to say that it's much preferable to the rat I had last year which caused me to develop a good relationship with the Council Rat Man. His traps and poisons proved strangely ineffective for a while, but he eventually saw it off by ramming a huge bag of poison down its hole and covering with a big stone.