Red kite at night, not to Grizzly Adams' delight
Maurice O'Brien • Published 21 Jul 2011 08:00
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A COUPLE of mornings a week the silence in my back garden is almost deafening. Absent is the usual hubbub of chattering blue tits, squabbling sparrows or the self-contented chortling of blackbirds rooting around in the bushes.
Absent too is the woodpecker which routinely drops by for a peanut breakfast. Likewise the chaffinches, the occasional fat pigeon, a couple of collar-necked doves and even the robin currently engaged in a running battle to defend its territory from a doggedly determined rival.
Where they hide I don't know. But a confirming glance towards the blue sky explains why. Circling majestically overhead will be a red kite; a truly magnificent sight unless, evidently, you happen to be the ready-packed ingredients for a fast food snack.
It's not that many years ago that in these pages I described spotting a red kite perched on a branch in my garden, and duly received a post bag of abuse from bird watching zealots accusing me of everything from senile decay to an appetite for illicit hallucinatory substances. Now, of course, red kites are as common in these parts as starlings, if not more so.
Mind you they're not yet as numerous as the snails and slugs capable of wreaking overnight devastation on everything I no longer bother to plant. Such mobster molluscs were once no match for a family of hedgehogs which, for all their amorous rowdiness, always proved loyal allies. Until the un-culled badgers arrived, and then it was goodbye hedgehogs.
The badgers, presumably nostalgic for nosh of a hedgehog nature, remain regular nocturnal visitors, and during midnight confrontations near the wheely bin allow me within a couple of feet before they lose their nerve and turn tail.
However, before anyone dubs me Tilehurst's answer to Mowgli, I must confess to having slight reservations over the ambitions of Natural England (formerly English Nature but then what's in a name) to start re-introducing the likes of beaver, elk, bears and lynxes to our green and pleasant land. Apparently it'll be good for tourism. But unless they teach these magnificent wild beasts the meaning of 'nature reserve' and 'no exit' they'll soon be changing my byline to Grizzly Adams.
WITH the bewildering speed of events it is difficult to keep track of the resigning policemen, touchingly naively politicians and newspaper folk with felt collars. But thus far we've at least avoided one nightmare, teeth-grinding scenario; the potentially excruciating sound of the BBC's Robert Peston interviewing Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
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