88. It's Gravity, Cyril!

There’s a stream that runs sedately and demurely around the edge of our garden and it is becoming clogged with reeds.  It flows from a lake about 150 metres away from our house.

The rapid growth and spread of these reeds over the last couple of months is unsightly but the worst thing about their rapid growth is that they block the movement of the many ducklings and goslings that use the stream as a thoroughfare to and from the lake at this time of year.

After a few phone calls I found someone (I’ll call him Cyril) who came round to thin them out.  Cyril arrived at 9 o’clock one morning and immediately set to work.

After two hours I went out to see how he was doing.  Things were going very well.  As we stood and surveyed the scene, Cyril noticed the bird feeder that we have hanging from an apple tree.

This is a photograph I took yesterday morning of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding from it.  The feeder had just been refilled with four fat balls and I was sitting in the conservatory when this woodpecker, which was only about five feet from me when I took this photo, came to feed.

There are at least two woodpeckers that come and they are bullies.  As soon as one arrives, the Nuthatches, Great, Blue and Long Tailed Tits all fly off and they don’t come back until the woodpecker has gone.  The four fat-balls are all eaten in three or four days.  That morning, one had already gone and so there were three balls left.

“I’ve got one of those,” Cyril said, gesturing at the feeder.  “Isn’t it funny how they always start at the top and eat the top ball first?”

I grinned and looked at him to show him that I thought it was quite a funny thing to say.  His face was and remained, expressionless.  I waited for some reaction.  Nothing!

“Yes it is.  Would you like a coffee?”

I’ve just checked.  Two have gone now and Cyril is right.  The bottom two balls are still there!