Being Deserted.

My birds have all but deserted me. All I’ve been getting on the feeding table for several weeks have been half a dozen House Sparrows. I’d say I’m down to about 5-10% of the usual numbers. That seems odd considering how much the temperature has dropped. You’d think they’d be glad of the food, wouldn’t you? But no, it’s hardly being touched at the moment.

The saddest thing, though, is that I haven’t seen my buddies the bats for three evenings now. I suppose they’ve gone into hibernation for the winter. Watching the bats performing their aerobatics at dusk has been one of the major highlights of my day ever since April. The swallows and martins left about a month ago.

The cows are still around, but not for much longer. The milking herds will soon be taken in, and the rest will be taken off to be stunned, disembowelled, decapitated, skinned and chopped into big slabs of red stuff to lie in butchers’ windows. No more playing scritch-scratch with my little friend at the end of Mill Lane.

I wonder whether Sarah would like to play scritch-scratch. Did I say that? I’m afraid I did. Shameful. Must be all this winding down getting to me.