Unlike Springtime in this garden I have not seen many birds. Until yesterday that is when about 20 goldfinches came to the bird table. What is the group name for lots of goldfinches? I must check it out.
On Friday morning I was late getting dressed and was in the garden with the boys on the lead when around 25 men all looking like Worzle Gummage holding long stick/poles all with hats on walked past the cottage. They saw me and I got a collective "mornin" in the local Devon accent. It was very bizarre and I was thinking maybe they belonged to some special walking group? When Ruth came down I told her and she laughed. They were the beaters going down to the Clovelly estate ready to beat the undergrowth to move the pheasants over to where the shooters would be waiting!! It was a pheasant shoot organised by the Red Lion pub in Clovelly and lots of very wealthy men and women had come down for the weekend shoot. Of course in the evening there was a meal and lots and lots of drinking!!
The locals do the beating to earn some money and also to get large tips. Had I known what they were going to be doing I would not have said good morning back!! How disgusting!!
Lucky you…I cannot attract goldfinches to our garden. Sadly we have no bird table up at the moment as we saw a large rat under outs one day. They have hens three doors down & we have all been seeing the odd rat. Harry is terrified in case they nest under out new decking! We haven’t seen one for about four months now thankfully.
