This is the time of year that I usually post some photo or other of the flowering cherry on our front lawn. This year though, the blossoms are looking a bit thin, something I put down to the crap weather. So no photos thus far.
But then we noticed the sparrows attacking the blossoms. They seem to be snipping the blossoms near their bases, presumably to get nectar. This is new behaviour for this year, at least around here, and I wonder where they got it from? Maybe they copied the tuis, whose longer beaks allow access to the flowers without damaging them?
Unfortunately, the sparrows have created quite a bit of damage, with most flowers now looking like this:
Worse, many of the flowers just drop on to the lawn. I’m getting a bit concerned that our favoured tūī will miss out; and later on, in November, the kererū won’t have any cherries.
We can chase the little blighters off, but half an hour or so they’re back: a little flock of avian destroyers.
I want to KILL them ALL.
Or… maybe there’s a whole new export industry there in the making: once we catch them, we can export them to China.
Seeing as how we probably won’t be sending much milk powder there in future, an alternative export opportunity right now probably wouldn’t go amiss.
Previous springtimes:
