Monday 30 December 2019

No Picnic for these Teddy Bears!

The aloe

If you look at the photos accompanying this post, you may wonder why we have made prisoners of my precious Teddy collection. Well, read on....

Just outside the kitchen there is a small garden surrounded by klippies, and in that garden is an aloe. It's not strictly speaking a tree aloe, but it has grown fairly tall over the years, and it is the same one that a dove chose a few years ago to make her nest. She built a somewhat untidy and rather precarious bundle of bits and pieces and then laid a couple of eggs and settled down to hatch them. But... and this you may remember... she, eggs and nest completely disappeared one night, just poof, gone! We never did discover what happened, we never found a trace of anything.
But, I digress.

One of the commonest bird species here is the Cape Sparrow, or 'mossie' as we call them and they will build a nest anywhere they can find a spot. Under the eaves, in old pots and buckets.... and between the leaves of aloes!
The very same aloe that the poor dove chose.

The nest is clearly visible.


 We watched them build their nest, we watched through the window so as not to disturb them, and they found bits and pieces from far and wide, lining it with some of Alfie's fur and fluffy seeds from the garden. And they built and built and built.

Then.... they saw themselves in the kitchen window!!

They both decided that their reflections were enemies, come to attack and steal their nest, so they attacked their reflections with gusto. Daily we heard the tap tap tap as their beaks hit the glass time and time again. Then they saw the kitchen door and the same thing happened. Upstairs we hung two old cd's so that they spun and reflected the light. That worked for a few days. We stuck coloured paper rolls on the outside of the kitchen door. That worked until the wind blew a corner off and the birds attacked again.

Help!!! Let us out!

 Finally in desperation, Rob wedged a couple of teddies in the window, held in place by the burglar bars, and that did the trick!! I think that the large eyes scared them into thinking a huge bird of prey was lurking in our house.
Luckily I have several bears, and a few more to spare, so we wedged them in every window that the mossies had attacked.... and there was peace!

Who is watching who??

But from the outside our house looked as though we had taken a posse of teddies prisoner and were holding them to ransom!!

And the birds carried on building. But last week they lost all interest in the whole operation, so we took the teddies away and apologised to them for the rough treatment that they had endured.

But..... guess what??

The birds are back and the teddies are re-lodged!!

What is the collective noun for Teddy Bears?? I like a 'cuddle' of teddy bears.

See you in 2020!!















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