Kitchen Garden Forum

We're getting quite a lot of wildlife in the garden this summer, apart from the usual wild birds. A flock of parakeets pays a regular visit, as do a couple of squirrels, a fox and two pheasants - both cocks. (Gay pheasants?) Our son and his wife stayed one night recently en route to Gatwick, and slept in a room with a window onto the garden. As it was very hot they suggested the main window should be left open during the night. "That's fine" I said, "give the fox a pat when he jumps in". They shut it very quickly!

We are getting quite a lot of un-welcome visitors, John, Wood Pigeons being the worse.....still waiting to see a hedgehog this year!

Not seen a hedgehog for years now. Lots of the usual garden birds but nothing exotic. But the pigeons keep having fights in the trees all around. Lots of very loud flapping - sounds like chuck out time at the pub on a Saturday night.

We get a lot of maggies, pigeons, rooks and crows. An old fishing friend of mine, Fred Taylor, once told me how to tell rooks and crows apart. He said if you see a lot of crows together then they're rooks. If you see a rook on its own, then its a crow!

Got a couple of Freds books one of the few well known anglers that I never bumped into, him and his brother seemed proper characters I would liked to have met.

Hi TB. Fred was a lovely man who I got to know through mutual contacts and meeting at events. He was a great cook and did the BBQ at an annual fishing fund raising event for a children's charity, also supported by Chris Tarrant. One time I was standing with a group of anglers by a bookstall and rashly ventured the opinion that I couldn't think of any leisure pursuit that had generated more literature than fishing. Tarrant gave me a pitying look and said "Oh, John, you have led a sheltered life"! Guess we're off subject now!