Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

The Seed Volcano

by admin - 22:27 on 13 December 2010

Birds are careless eaters. The ground beneath their feeders is soon covered by husks and untouched seed, scattered by the ravenous flocks. That's why the feeders are supposed to be moved around.

But in The Rural Retreat we have a more relaxed attitude. The feeder by the gate stays in place so that we can watch the avian action and as a result a mound has grown steadily over the months and given us a healthy crop of grass. In the summer, when germination took place, the heap was distinctly warm.

Then came the snow – the feeders emptied almost as quickly as we could fill them and shivering birdlife was driven to find food wherever it could in a frozen landscape.

I suspect that the woodpigeons were responsible for the excavation of the mound, assisted by the pheasants. They're big and strong enough to dig through the snow and the grassy top layer to find the food beneath, and once they'd created the open cast grain mine the smaller birds weren't slow to take advantage.

Now that the snow has gone (for the moment), what was once a green mountain has become a volcano, its crater filled with seed rather than lava. The scattering of discarded eggshells (pine martens are careless eaters too) adds the finishing touch. I may enter it for next year's Turner prize.

Matchgirl Update: The jet-setter landed safely in Shetland yesterday and should return one day before the white hell that's forecast to envelope us on Thursday. With luck, Mr Fixit will be able to struggle through the blizzards to restore our shower facilities and running hot water, watched with huge interest (if she can escape her real work long enough) by Matchgirl the would-be plumber. Perhaps I should warn him...

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