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Saturday 25 February 2012

Walter

We are lucky where we live in that we back onto the countryside and have a great deal of cover for birds and wildlife. I can sit at the breakfast table and watch young fox cubs playing or the birds feeding on the bird table.
Black birds are very territorial and have quite a nasty temper. One alpha blackbird will command the bird table and prevent any other blackbird eating even if the alpha is quite full himself. Strangely though he is quite happy for sparrows and other birds to share the table with him. We occasionally get a treat with a woodpecker, nuthatch or tree creeper feeding too.
Jac is fascinated by the birds and will sit at the window watching them and strangely it is only the blackbird that sets him off. Being a working cocker he is genetically programmed to flush birds out although we don't work him as such.
Now the other visitors we get are the John Candy look alike. I call him Walter well for those of you not old enough to remember there was  a Canadian actor called Walter Pidgeon with the extra "d". Now Walter will hop onto the bird table and eat until he can hardly take off. Mind you eating can be a dangerous game. One of Walter's Uncles was feeding there a couple of years ago when a Sparrow Hawk descended and took him out for breakfast in a flurry of feathers.
This morning Walter crashed onto the bird table for his feed and I grabbed the back of an old letter to capture him. So the sketch is there above. I bet he never dreamed he 'd make it onto TheWorld Wide Web.

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