I cheated a bit with the photo today as it's not one of mine. I got it from Unsplash (Photo by Claudio Mezzasalma on Unsplash). It was just too apt not to use.
My husband is now the only person in the family not to be poo'd on by seagulls in the past few weeks. As ever in this area our urban seagulls are twice the size of the lovely ones you see in more rural areas and look like they carry flick knives under their wings!
The Magpies are back as well (I hate Magpies), one of them keeps throwing itself at the window behind where I'm working. It either sees its reflection and either hates or fancies itself or it's trying to attack me in a Hitchcock 'The Birds' kinda way.
On the other side of the valley the crows are also nesting and out in force, with their constant and extremely loud cawing.
Let's just say that the morning chorus in my area is not the blissful harmony you might get in other areas.
That said, post 2020 lockdown there are some huge (I'll come back to huge) differences in the wildlife around here. As well as our normal flick knife carrying larger birds with their town crier voices we also have, quite suddenly, hundreds of smaller birds. So many in fact that you can hear them over and above the large bird cacophony. It's quite magical because it's a very new experience.
It reminds me of when I lived rurally with my parents, where you heard bird song and wood pigeons. What's strange though is that where they live all of the birds have disappeared! The only explanation is that when things were quieter they all came for a holiday to the coast - doubtless now things have got noisy and buzzy again they'll realise the error of their ways and go back to their rural retreats for next summer.
Other wildlife is also different - I've mentioned that suddenly we have squirrels - they used to be really rare around here - you'd see them in church yards and parks, but not in gardens. Now we have squirrels jumping about everywhere. They are urban squirrels though - nothing cute about them. I saw one stalking a blackbird the other day.
The other thing about the squirrels is that they are huge - at least twice the size of normal squirrels I've seen and I've mentioned before we have one in the back garden that's the size of a cat (though husband doesn't believe me).
We're still looking for a dog - I simply refuse to pay the current prices. I'm going to dig my heels in and wait until the prices come down to pre-COVID levels. If they don't then I'll maybe get over myself. I don't want a dog before the summer holidays anyway - as the cottage we've booked doesn't allow dogs (that's practical of me isn't it!).
When I choose the dog the size will be decided based on whether it could get picked up by a seagull (it happens - just check the news!) or could lose a fight with a giant squirrel. Maybe I'll end up with a Great Dane.
On other things. After the heavy pruning of my wisteria I'm pleased to say that some sprouts are coming back. You can just see them under all the fake foliage and wisteria I've got hanging from the wall (ahhh nature). My mother came for lunch on Sunday and was absolutely horrified when she saw all the fake plants in the garden.
She'll be pleased though because it's not just her that is horrified by my tacky gardening ways. I was in a 2.5 hour Teams meeting on Tuesday and suddenly one of my friends appeared in the back garden. I watched them as they poked around choosing spots, then they went and collected what they needed and started to plant real plants in my garden.
I couldn't chat to them as I was mid-meeting and concentrating hard on what was being said (still very much in new job learning mode). It was however very strange - that's not to say I'm not grateful. In fact I sent them a box of chocolates last night. I await to see what come out of the ground.
Triffids perhaps?
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