Inspired by my friend Paddy, who has a close friendship with the pair of blackbirds nesting in her lovely walled garden in Chichester, I have started putting out grapes for my nesting blackbirds. They have moved into the ivy (on the house wall in this pic) and get very narky when I have my breakfast outside, believing themselves to be the ruling monarchs of this small green patch of Liverpool. They make their presence felt, I can tell you. More of this later.
Last year I tried a grape or two, and these were carried off with glee. So I draped a small bunch of grapes over a branch of the viburnum, and watched the blackbirds attacking these with more glee, delighted to find a grape tree all of a sudden.
Yesterday's bunch of grapes was too feeble to withstand the weight of a great greedy blackbird, so I put the grapes on the table below their nest instead.
An hour later, half the bunch had been shunted to one side of the table, and the other half had presumably dropped through the hole in the middle, as it was now on the little circular ledge half way down the table legs.
This morning this bunch had completely vanished, stalks and all, so whether the birds had been keen as mustard, or it was a rat, or a gnu, or a grape-eating giraffe, I have no clue. But someone's had 'em.
The point of putting out food for wildlife is so one can enjoy said wildlife having it away with the comestibles. Sneaking off with them behind one's back is not cricket. I might have to have a word.
I speak excellent Chicken, and pretty good Seagull, but as yet haven't mastered Blackbird, so I will have to rely on tone of voice to get the message over to the recalcitrant yellow-beaked miscreant.
