HELL'S JACKDAWS

I think it was about three summers ago that we first decided to try and properly encourage the tiny birds to flutter in the direction of our own little postage stamp of land as a kind of natural solution to the desolation wrought the previous summer by the slugs and bugs that pretty much scoffed everything we planted almost as soon as our backs were turned. The more birds that come to the garden, the theory went, the more of the little parasites will get eaten and there would be less of them left to go on leaf-nibbling duties.

As theories go, well, it’s not the worst I’ve ever heard.

So off we jolly well toddled to a garden centre and spent not an inconsiderable sum of our hard-earned on such bird feeding equipment as various feeding devices and supplies of seed and nuts, all costing considerably more, I suppose, than the savings we might actually have made from growing half a dozen lettuces and the odd courgette instead of grabbing them from Mr Sainsbury’s greengrocing establishment.

That, of course, is not the point.

Anyway, as novice bird-encouragement types, we hung up the feeders, positioning them safely enough (we hoped) that they were out of range of the neighbourhood cats, filled them with birdie treats and waited… and waited… and waited…. Those savvy little feathered flutterers took a while to spot that there was a new restaurant in town and were wise enough to wait and see whether they were actually safe – and cat-free - places to eat, but, after a few days we were able to report that “There be birdies here!” and so the merry dance began.

Within a very short while the rather large local Jackdaw population also noticed that there were tasty treats to be had and within a few days we had become a regular stop on their daily hunter-gatherer quest for sustenance. No sooner would I fill the feeders up then they would swoop down en-masse and devour the lot, leaving the cuter little birdies to go hungry or, at best, wait for them to clear off and be left with whatever few bits of food remained.

Battle had been joined. The Jackdaw seems to be a bit of a bully when it comes to the smaller birds, using its sheer size and weight of numbers to intimidate all the other birdies off their “patch”. However, like many bullies, they are also fundamentally cowards at heart and would flee back to the trees at the slightest knock upon our window panes or waving of the arms, and this merry dance continued as I went out and bought different types of feeders that would make it more difficult for the Jackdaws to get at the food, whilst still making it available to our more “acceptable” feathered visitors. I would, of course, still use the other feeders, so that the Jackdaws could get at what I considered to be their fair share, but hopefully the distribution might be a bit more even.

However, as well as being a bit of a bully, the Jackdaw is also a terribly clever bird, and many was the morning we would see them performing all kinds of ingenious gymnastics to gain access to feeders that we genuinely had thought beyond their skill set. Many is the time I wished that I had a video camera handy just to capture some of the spectacular antics that they seemed capable of in order to get another seed to eat. Sometimes I think that they must burn off far more energy in getting the food than they could ever hope to get from the food itself, but I did start to get rather fascinated by all their ingenious activities.

Within a very short period of time, it appeared that the local Jackdaw population was thriving due, I began to suspect, in no small part to the amount of food that I was buying for them. Some days thirty or more could be seen getting up to various tricks on the fences and railings hereabouts, making that racket that I began to suspect must be really starting to get on the nerves of all my neighbours.

“Oh, God! He’s not feeding them again is he?”

Once upon a time I used to really resent the Jackdaws, and all of the bird food I was buying seeming to be getting eaten by them. I started seeing them as the Hell’s Angels of the garden as they rode in like a tiny little 1950s motorcycle gang in their little black jackets with a cocky little Brando-type at their head.

“What are you rebelling against?”

“What have you got?”

But if you’re going to feed the birds, I suppose you must accept that you’re going to be feeding all of the birds, Jackdaws included, and I think that, over the years, we’ve started to learn to, well, not exactly live together, but certainly tolerate each other’s existence.