This is going to be a blog entry largely about birds. I know that - looking at the photos- there isn't a bird in sight, but bear with me and we will come to the birds. All three pictures were taken at the home of senior daughter Sarah, and her husband Mikey, with whom we have just spent a delightful, not to say festive, weekend . Before we set out for the South Midlands on Friday, we had to clear out our sitting room fireplace which was full of twigs. During the last week or so, a pair of matrimonially inclined and optimistic jackdaws have been regularly stuffing loads of twigs down one of our large, old (well Tudor, so they would be old- the last Tudor, Elizabeth, died in 1603) chimneys. This may seem strange behaviour, but any jackdaw will tell you it's a good idea, as, with any luck, sooner or later a twig will stick, crosswise, in the chimney, and then all the other twigs later deposited on top of the stuck twig will build up, and eventually form the basis of a decentish nest. This breed of bird are thought to have been doing this since they started the habit by dropping twigs down cracks in the rocks to achieve the same purpose. We, however, do not require a chimney blocked with jackdaws' nests, so have been clearing the twigs away as fast as they've been deposited. We've also been discouraging the birds whenever we hear them on the chimney top, by beating (in the fireplace, and up the chimney) on an old biscuit tin with a wooden spoon, bursting paper bags in the chimney, ringing large handbells up the chimney, and eventually firing a percussion 'pepperbox' pistol up the chimney - not with a full charge, just the priming caps, but LOUD! All of these methods seemed only to work for a day or so, as the jackdaws (intelligent birds) soon work out that no real damage ensues, other than the nerves becoming a little frayed.
Right - back to photies:- the top one is of Sarah, our senior daughter (centre, with her youngest daughter, Lucy, to the left of the photo, and her senior (musn't use the term 'oldest' for a lady) daughter, Sophie, to the right of the photo.
Above picture is of Lucie and her granny.
This picture is of Sarah's youngest, Guy (now thirteen) just off to a footer match against a school team from Bedford; which team, he later informed me, they 'troshed' ( a Norfolk term) by five goals to one. As I said above a lovely weekend.
This morning we motored home, stopping off half way, for a cuppa at Quy Mill. Back in the car, and before we got back to the road, I spotted my first two swallows of this year. Rather late in the year, but then everything is late this year.
Got home, and found the ground floor in a glorious mess:- one of the two jackdaws had got down the chimney, and (taking a charitable view of his activities) panicked! Vases, flowers, dishes, all on the floor. Miraculously only one broken, and that one only a cracked Victorian blue and white bowl. It had been full of Victorian glass marbles which made the floor pretty hazardous for us. Unfortunately his panic appears to have spread to his bowels, and he'd left large deposits of jackdaw-guano all over the floor and chairbacks!!! Unfortunately (probably fortunately for him) we've been totally unable to find the little brute, and can only assume that he eventually got back up the chimney. I know this seems improbably but the downstairs curtains were drawn across, and for part of the morning the sun shines down the chimney and into the fireplace so he may have followed the light upwards. As I said, it's a large old chimney with several ledges on the sides so it's possible he made his escape that way. If he turns up anywhere indoors I'll let you know. I shall, of course, remonstrate with him regarding his conduct!!!!! In fact, he might turn out to be another thing that becomes late this year.
8 comments:
That sounds like a pleasant weekend, apart from coming home to a scene of avian destruction.
I used to live in a flat that had a gas fire in the chimney place. There was a very small hole behind the fire for ventilation purposes and one day I came home to find that a (by now terrified) starling had managed to get down the chimney, squeeze through the tiny gap and take up residence in my lounge. I'm not sure which of us was the most surprised when we encountered one another that evening.
I feel your pain with regard to the mess - there was poop everywhere! Trying to round him up and eject him proved difficult but eventually I opened the front door and sort of herded him out with the aid of a tea-tray!
I've being mildly plagued by badly behaved dick-bods more recently too. A pair of magpies seem to have moved into our neighbourhood and a right pair of hooligans they are. I have seen them trying to drive off some of the smaller birds that frequent my garden and last week one of them sat in my guttering and amused him/herself by dropping things down onto the roof of my conservatory.
I'm stuck with the slightly surreal image of you and Ann banging tins, ringing bells and firing guns up the chimberly - bit like a scene from a Bertie Wooster!
We once had a bat enter the upstairs and my good lady had to deal with it whilst I protected my hair under the bedcovers
We didn't do these things all at the same time Rog. The mixture would have been a bit rich, I agree. But tried all of them over a period of a couple of weeks or so. All of them, as I said, worked for a short time, until the jackdaws worked out that no real harm was being done them and returned to the attack.
P.s. I forgot the part about blowing whistles up the chimney.
P.p.s. I started the assault by putting my head up the chimney and saying 'miou' quite politely. The jackdaws were unconvinced and fell about with raucous laughter.
Raucous laughter at the Zedery too, sorry!
P.s. If anyone knows of a foolproof method for getting rid of a couple of villainously strong minded jackdaws from a chimney I should be horribly grateful.
P.P.s. Serious suggestions only, please, Crowbard and Rog.
Dear Rog. You will note that Liz (Ursa Minor) once tackled a similar problem with a tea tray, which might be seen as a bit Bertie Woosterish (Or to be a bit more respectful - Bertram Wilberforce Wooster-ish). I don't think you can equate either Ann or meself with Bertie- I think the nearest characters in the Wooster saga might be Bertie's uncle Tom Travers and his wife, Aunt Dahlia Travers - they being Tom, a collector, and Aunt Dahlia a rather sporting old dear. They might just about fit.
The obvious solution is to stoke up a decent fire in the grate which will toast their muffins so they can flap away replete. After all they were clearly after a bit of crumpet originally!
Perhaps a large hair-net or a galvanised wire snood over the outlet might convince them of the unavailability of nesting space.
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