Gilbert’s letter xxii, first paragraph, was a bit of a departure, commenting on the lack of church spires or steeples in West Sussex and Hampshire. I knew he was a vicar, so his religious work would naturally impact his life. As we go around the countryside, it’s always interesting to see the different styles of church towers.
Gilbert talks of the goat-sucker, a bird that I have never heard of. Known as the Nightjar today. I don’t know the bird at all.
Gilbert carries on about sitting for frequent half-hour sessions watching the birds’ behaviour, and it hits me that we sit down at the bottom of the garden and watch the starlings as they dive bomb and squabble over the feeders. The sparrows that flash across the garden into the bush where they perch before deciding if it’s safe enough to approach the feeder. The magpies on next door’s rooftops are bouncing, chattering and prancing around like they own the place. How I wish they’d come into our garden whilst we are there, they’d be perfectly safe. Meanwhile, the pigeons are waiting on the roofs, determined to get to the feeders. We also have fairly frequent observation periods. It really is lovely.
Do people really keep bats, caged?
Disappointingly, I don’t have any weather stats to offer. We’ve had some exceptionally hot days. I try to avoid going out in the sun, unlike the mad dogs.
I did something this week that people might think of as being “Very Gilbert”. The front hedge between the neighbour and us, to the east of us, is a passion fruit bush, which is a prodigious producer of flowers and seed pods. I found a seed pod that had fallen to the ground, but was in very good condition. I thought, “I know, I’ll cut it open to see what’s happening inside”. Nature really is amazing, isn’t it? The delicacy of the seeds inside and the level to which the plant goes to protect them is amazing. I’m not sure how many individual seed pods there were inside, possibly 20. – 30, each individually connected to the wall of the pod by a thin stalk. A beautifully neat arrangement. I was reminded of something slightly similar from a few weeks ago. I had been eating a corn cob, and had been thinking how neat nature worked cupping the individual corns on the cop, that was as I was eating it, of course. Yummy!
All The Best
Bill
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