Since we have been here I have always bemoaned the lack of birdlife in the garden, which I had mainly attributed to the number of cats in the neighbourhood plus the�lack of decent trees. I was envious of the thrushes in my father's garden, industriously eating all his slugs and snails, and the bullfinches in my art teacher's garden obligingly sitting by the back window. We had the occasional flock of starlings in the cherry tree, with�which�we would happily share our annual glut of fruit, and rarely a sparrow, but otherwise we seemed to inhabit a birdfree zone.
Now it seems�I have a new bete noir, in the form of�Turdus merula, and they are�a very black hearted pair of�blackbirds.�They are on their second brood now and have become very territorial, manically chasing everything in the�garden,�and their scolding alarm call starts at 3.30�in the morning�and goes on until 10 at night. Continuously. You cannot blame them, they are just being good parents. But it is still bloody annoying...
Now they have started picking over all the newly mulched beds and tossing the compost I had carefully spread to conserve moisture all over the gravel paths. I know they are�just looking for tasty worms and that it really does not matter much in the scheme of things but really, don't they know I am trying to save the planet with my compost? It's for their bloody benefit! Ungrateful buggers...
Anyway they seem to be settling down a bit on the noise front. So now all�I have to contend with is cats crapping everywhere in our vegetable beds and birds tossing the remains around like party poppers. I guess next year it will be plastic mulch. Although then�it will be the slugs of course!