Bog Myrtle & Peat

With the rain on Wednesday and the mild weather ever since, the game cover is really coming to life. Little seedlings are emerging all over the field, and some of the triticale which I sowed last week is already three or four inches high. Unfortunately, there is a fly in the ointment. The few rooks which I missed with my funnel trap in March have bred like rats, and the twenty or so which evaded capture have produced huge quantities of chicks which are now fledged. The game cover is within sight of the trees where they nested, and it’s not hard to imagine what damage they could do to the young plants if they took the notion.

My response has taken two prongs. On one hand, I am trapping rooks as fast as I can with three larsen traps and a larsen’s mate next to a feed hopper on the hill above the game cover, and on the other, I have enlisted the help of a scarecrow. “Mr. Lightbody” the scarecrow is nattily enrobed in my old boilersuit and has a linen bag full of hay for a head. He’s not your  whimsically pastoral scarecrow of “yellow brick road” fame, but more of a hard talking weapon-head with an appetite for disruption. If I were a crow, I’d leave the game cover well alone, but sadly, as is the way of all scarecrows, his novelty will soon wear off.  I expect that the rooks will soon get used to him and then ignore him altogether, but he may just buy me a few hours of peace and quiet during which time the seedlings can get a foot in the door.

I must admit that I did have some fun putting him together, and had a pleasing little chuckle to myself when I came up with his name.