I watched this guy, with about 80 of his buddies, make repeated sorties to my neighbour’s cherry tree yesterday. They were so cheekily rambunctious that it was like being caught in that Hitchcock bird movie. Before this lot showed up, the tree was laden with delicious, yellow-red fruits, ready for the picking. And these little shaggers did the picking. As they flew off, each with a cherry jammed in the beak, they looked like a mocking flock of feathered lawn darts in flight. From where I sit this morning, enjoying another beautiful sunrise, I can’t see a single cherry remaining!

My cat was thoroughly entertained by this same flock yesterday. She spent much of the afternoon sitting in the window, tail swishing back & forth, in eager anticipation of being allowed to go out to play. I should have let her out!

In between visits to the cherry tree, you see, they were visiting my back yard. I’m not sure if it was chinch bugs or grasshoppers, but they were having a serious party out there. And if it was either, or both, of those lawn-destroying bugs, I was happy to have the birds do the extermination for me.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that, during their moments of respite on my deck, they found another snack!

My seedlings!

The little monsters treated my deck-rail planters like the peanut bowl at some avian nightclub. They’re destroyed. Done for. Devoid of plant life now.

I’m seriously re-evaluating my “don’t even hurt a fly” philosophy of life now! And while I do that, I’m online-shopping for some stainless steel mesh to protect my ripening blueberry crop!

By the way, anyone know what species of bird that is? Might as well pick up some new knowledge on the back of the whole affair!

Stay safe out there.