The blackbirds have had another family. This afternoon I was down the garden with the rake, knocking some lovely red apples down from the top of the tree, when suddenly I heard piercing squeaks and something brown was writhing about under some ivy at the foot of the tree. It looked like a small brown rat... till I saw that familiar yellow triangle of an open beak. It was a baby blackbird and I'd hit it with a falling apple!
It was making a hell of a din and I could see Chi Mimi, next door's Bengal cat, trotting down the garden to see that the commotion was. The female blackbird was making her alarm calls from a tree, so I scooped up the cat and shut her indoors and consulted my parter about what to do. I didn't know if the bird was injured or not. He went down, looked at it and said it was best to leave it and 'let nature take its course'. Either its mother would get it to safety somehow, as it was still unable to fly, or... Well, there are cats and foxes galore in our garden, not to mention the sparrowhawk.
I watched through the window as the mother blackbird was down in the leaves with the baby. Later, I went down there and there was no sign of adult or youngster. I hope this time the young bird had a lucky escape.
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