1287 – The Bird Table

I want to tell you a little bit about the bird table, I am delighted to say that it is quite popular with the local bird population, particularly the starlings. They are an absolute delight. It is also popular with the pigeons, now really I don’t mind them – most of the time. But just occasionally I think they (the pigeons) take it a little too far and block out everybody else. To try and control things a little I put cable ties around the uprights (not the bird table in the picture, another one). It doesn’t stop the pigeons completely, they can get at the edge of the food, and a really determined one can get on the table, but it does hold them back, giving the smaller birds a better run at the food. The ties have no impact on the squirrels, we don’t mind them either, but prefer the birds to get first dibs. After all that, this story isn’t about the birds or the squirrels, but does give a bit of context – the cable ties.

When I went to sort out the bird table this morning, this first thing I noticed was that a snail, sometime in the last 24 hours, had started a monumental journey up the bird table leg the pillar, had gone on the underside of the table, up around the edge and was almost out of its shell where it had stretchers itself over the cable tie and was desperately trying to get at the bird food.

Now, I have to be honest with you, I think snails are disgustingly fascinating, horrible slimy things, but with impressive homes. I can’t bring myself to touch them. Elayne just picks them up and drops them in the brown bin, I can’t do that. I had to get the snail off the table so I twanged the cable tie, flicking the snail off. After all that effort to just be thrown off like that.

Questions were going through my mind; How did it know that there would be food up there? Did it really climb all the way up? What ever the answers it was quite an impressive feat, and I then wished I’d my phone with me to take a picture of it.

I felt quite guilty at flicking it off the way I did, but I really didn’t want it on the table.

I did my weather thing, got the bird food ready for the days feed and took it back to the table. Only to find that, what I assume was the original snail, was on the bottom part of the table leg, starting a new journey up. I left it to it.

I’ll have a look in the morning to see how it progressed.