Caught Thief!

Purple poo around the greenhouse door alerted me to the fact that my efforts to protect the greenhouse grapes were not working. I stepped inside and there it was. Or one of them, at least. Given the devastation the blackbirds have wreaked on my fruit crop this season it was lucky to get out unscathed. (There’s nothing wrong with its wing.)

Two blackbird pairs are raising chicks in my garden. At present one has two fledgelings, and the other has at least one. They have eaten their way through bushes full of berries, trees full of plums and apricots and they are now starting on the grapes and apples. They pick the fruit while it is still green, and in the case of one apricot tree and two plum trees, the fruit was all gone before I had a chance to taste it. All this in addition to the incessant digging up of plants and bulbs in the garden.

I love birds. I especially love the blackbird’s song. But I can feel a mean streak developing in me.