Richard Wilson

I heard the term casual pets for the first time on radio yesterday. It refers to any creature you feed in your garden such as birds, hedgehogs etc. Here at Pinkie we are blessed with a huge enclosed playing area that is refuge to many birds I would like to think of as our casual pets. Yesterday I counted in excess of 50 curlews and as many oyster catchers working our playing fields for worms, leatherjackets and any other small invertebrates. We have some noisy visitors over from Scandinavia who are steadily denuding our rowan trees of their berries and also working the fields, these fieldfares are fascinating in their behaviour, they seem to claim a tree and squabble like mad with their mates over the berries. But our pride of place must go to our resident hen harriers, we have a breeding pair somewhere on our premises who make spectacular watching. The male is a pale grey colour, the female, who is larger, is browny with a barred tail. During breeding the male provides the meals, he calls to her as he nears the nest, she leaves and pursues him, turns updside down in mid-flight and grabs the vole/bird as she flies underneath him. During the winter months she ambushes our feral pigeons as they leave our doocot and devours them alive. Who needs the Serengeti when you have this stuff right on your doorstep! In addition, we have visiting roe deer and foxes, who lie up in our bramble patches and help keep our rabbits in control.

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