That's fair, Helen. But I've never seen a rat in our garden in 37 years, Nor have I heard of one in any of the gardens of our neighbours. Had I done so, I'd be honest enough to admit it.
Apologies - this was never a thing about you - more about our neighbours who fed their birds last year, in an extravagant fashion, then proudly announced they had put down poison because they were worried that the rats were about to cut through their wires and cause a fire. So I totally agree, feeding birds is fine, as long as you don’t then take this “kindness” as an excuse to put down poison to lead the rats you attracted, to a slow agonising death as our neighbours did.
Our neighbours have done the same thing. One of their many bird feeders is also attached on the wall right at the point where our houses join so really close to our bedroom window which is great fun early on a morning.
The thing that always gets me is when people put down poison to eliminate the pests they don't like, how do they guarantee that other creatures don't eat that same food source? A few years back, we had an issue with a neighbour's cats coming into our garden. Now I openly admit that I don't like cats, but I'd never hurt one. My method of getting rid of them has always been to wave my arms at them and shout "Shoo"! Which does nothing for my macho image! Truth be told, our resident blackbirds are more than capable of chasing them off! As it happens, we don't have any feeders. Just a bird table.
Exactly our argument with our neighbours last year. Had she put no bird food down, the birds would have been fine, the rats would be elsewhere, and our cat and other wildlife free from harm. Our cat would have been a deterrent for the rats, and she would still be being chased off by the blackbirds. However, they put down huge quantities of all kinds of feed, and then the rats appear. My cat starts bringing them in. Except now they’ve put poison down, in bags that can be torn open by mice/ rats, hedgehogs etc. and so there’s the risk that the cat or other predators intercept a poisoned rat. End result - we have to keep our cat indoors for weeks on end, windows shut, in the height of summer because our neighbour is playing “God” with wildlife. I love to see birds etc, but how does the neighbour come to decide which bits of nature are acceptable on everyone’s behalf?
This last winter had 3/4 feeders out in the garden with usual bird seed mix - but no interest shown by birds. Very different in previous winters when feeders would be empty within a couple of days. Slightly o/t - more Robins seen in the garden this spring than in previous years.
Supermarket Dìck Of The Week Award... Goes to the bloke in front of me at the self serve till this morning. Put all his items on the conveyor belt, then picked up the last item in his line of goods (furthest one from the till), walks back to the till, scanned it. Goes back to the end of his line, picks up the last item, walks down the conveyor belt again, scans it. Then scanned all his stuff in the same way, back to front. This had two effects: 1. It took him ten times longer to scan it all; 2. The conveyor belt didn't move for me until he scanned his last item, which made it trickier for me to get my stuff on to the belt. Then to make matters worse, he was texting while trying to pay for his stuff. You know who you are. Dìck.
Another one is when things that are meant to be good are priced extortionately. Best example is carrier bags. Morrisons paper bags are 30p each. What incentive is there?
I’d take my top off and use it as a sack to carry my stuff in before I’ll pay 30p for a bag made of paper. What annoys me more is that there’s no option for no bags when getting an online delivery and they use a plastic bag (that’s always ripped so can’t even be reused) per every couple of items and charge 5p each for the privilege.
Really does my head in. It's the same across the disposable market though. Environmentally friendly paper cups cost more than double the price of a polystyrene cup. Environmentally friendly bagasse food boxes cost almost 3 times as much as polystyrene ones.
Jeff Bezos isn't worried. He knows the earth resources are going to be used up soon so why bother? He’s going to save us all and his grand plan is to start colonising other planets. As a kid Jeff was a big Star Trek fan. His favourite character was The Enterprise’s computer. Reight Jeff. Keep tekkin the tablets.