An upsettingly sad thing happened today.
I discovered the beginnings of a crow’s nest in Mark’s shed.
Mark is not usually heartless about these things, but he said that it could not stay there, because it was completely mixed in with things like his tools and the oil for the cars and all sorts of useful stuff that he uses all of the time.
He has not been using his spanners all the time at the moment, because of the bat flu. He has started using them a bit more since he has been trying to make the taxis rather more roadworthy.
He thought that the crows must have been building it at night, because he clatters in and out of his shed all day, and he has only once seen a crow.
We did wonder about it yesterday when we started to take the dogs for a walk and discovered that the yard was full of sticks.
Mark uses his shed all of the time, and he said that the nest on top of his tools had got to come out. He said that it was much better to get it out now than to disturb some poor mummy crow, deep in her sitting torpor, by rattling about and accidentally knocking her nest to bits.
I thought this was horribly sad but I knew that he was right.
There was an awful lot of it, and it was very impressively creative.
There were strips of plastic bag, and an old spoon and lots and lots of twigs, and a very great deal of the moss that I had put in the front garden especially to help the nesting activities along. Our front garden has become a bit of an Ikea for nesting birds. Every time I have found something that I thought might be useful nesting material I have been putting it in there, and almost all of it has disappeared within hours.
The last lot was a bucket full of dry moss that I peeled off the firewood logs before putting them in the stove.
Our morning coffee has become especially interesting, because we can see the front garden from our bed, and we can sit and watch the birds bouncing down from the garden wall, and carefully deciding which bits they want to take. Sometimes they have tried to carry so much at once that their flight path has become awkwardly wobbly, weighted down by a beak full of treasure.
I think the chimney of the holiday house opposite is a bit of a favourite nesting spot. Mark said that once he had to clear out an old chimney where crows had been nesting, and loaded three trailer loads of dead sticks. He said it was not at all a nice job, because of the mites.
I hope nobody goes to the house on holiday before the babies have hatched. It might not be very nice anyway, because there will be a lot of surprise bits of tumbledown bird’s nest in the fireplace.
I took all of the bits of nest around to the front garden and left them there, feeling horribly guilty, as if I had just fired a ballistic missile at an unsuspecting peasant township.
I felt a lot worse when the crows came to look for their nest in the evening. That was a dreadful moment. They sat on the wall and looked very disappointed.
Mark said that birds have got to learn to make good choices, and that probably they were a very young pair, but it did not help much. I felt terribly sad on their behalf. I hope they find somewhere better.
We have had a busy day. We have knocked down the bricked-up door between the house and the conservatory. We were not going to do this until we could afford to buy a window to put in it, which we can’t, but it is such a messy job that we thought we ought to get it over with.
Also I was absolutely longing to get it done, and now that I have, it is wonderful, apart from the masses of dust and the still-unfinished clearing up. Every inch of me is coated in a thick grey dust
The new kitchen is awash with sunlight. It is magnificent.
I am very pleased indeed.
Have a picture.
