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RAB MCNEIL: It’s a jungle out there, all the beasties are about

Rab's friend Gabby the crow has been coming for a chat.
Rab's friend Gabby the crow has been coming for a chat.

It’s a jungle out there. And that’s just the back garden. I don’t mean mine or yours in particular. Nor am I referring to how manicured your demesne may or may not be.

I refer to the beasties roaming aboot, in areas that have foxes, badgers and hedgehogs.

True, my area lacks these. I did have a hedgehog once, and briefly, but we don’t get foxes or badgers.

Every night is fight night

However, where there’s a variety of these, plus cats, every night is fight night.

Badgers rule the roost, according to the BBC’s Springwatch programme, while cats give foxes a run for their money but can’t cope with hedgehogs, one of which was filmed rolling a fellow hedgehog into a pond.

They’re fighting each other over food left out by kind humans, and at least they’re not outright killing one another for once. But, otherwise, it’s dog eat dog out there.

I’ve always been quite candid in confessing that I do not approve of the world of nature, and would have created something less cruel were I a deity which, according to my birth certificate, I am not.

Rab’s wee robin has also been popping by.

But we’re stuck with it noo, and the only hope relies on genetically modifying the beasties to make them nicer to each other. Same applies to humans.

Among my wee garden birds, there can be rammies at feeding time, mostly posturing rather than pecking.

But, when there’s oodles of grub, they generally get along, all shapes and sizes and colours.

One of my wee robins has hurt his leg, and now comes into the kitchen doorway if I leave the door open.

He’s a fine little fellow, not just interested in food but often up for a chat, which is to say me talking tripe at him.

He sits fluffed up on a branch while I, with my big red coupon just a few inches away, gab on.

He looks happy enough but is possibly thinking, ‘There’s Rab talking a lot of mince again. Still, he seems happy enough.’

Gabby in fine voice

Talking of talking, Gabby the crow has found his voice again. Rare days of spring sunshine bring out the best in him.

There’s a gang of crows round here, but Gabby goes off on his own, finds a telegraph pole to sit on and babbles away, making an intriguing variety of weird noises.

Perhaps he’s brighter then the others, almost on the brink of speech. Perhaps he’s like Jeeves the butler, in the P.G. Wodehouse novels, with a head that sticks out the back to accommodate a larger brain.

Thankfully, we don’t have magpies round here because, if we did, the garden birds would die out.

They’re horrible beasts and, back in my city suburban days, I always shooed them off, though I saw them kill fledglings often enough.

Once, in my of my favourite places, Inveresk Lodge Garden, East Lothian, I saw all the wee birds, about six different species, banding together to fend off a magpie raiding a nest.

It was very impressive, like Nato, with different countries united against Putin.

In the meantime, I fear that, by the sound of things, our back gardens need a kind of peacekeeping force. If you’re thinking of joining, watch you don’t get rolled into a pond.

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