Nature’s Litterlouts, vandals and bullies.
In the days when you could find plenty of thrushes in your garden you would also find the piles of snail shells discarded by a large stone or piece of pavement. Those days are few and far between now. Now you get magpies emptying dustbin bags or pulling rubbish out of the dustbins that are not properly closed. I recently heard someone say the words that I thought was the punch line for a joke – “if it wasn’t for the magpies we wouldn’t have any birds in our garden”.Aaahhh.
Living in a town as I do there is not much that you can do about magpies except chase them away whenever they come into the garden. A couple of years ago driving up to the house after being away for a few days we counted twenty four magpies in one lime tree. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl…… twenty four for not a single song bird in the garden.
Walking along the bank of the river the other day I noticed that someone had left the remains of their picnic on one of the riverside seats. It looked to have been a very tasty meal, which included crab and lobster tails. Wait a minute; cooked crab and lobster are not blue in colour. What I had stumbled on was the remains of a number of crayfish; there were large claws, legs and tails on the seat and surrounding area.
Who was the gourmet diner? There were fingerprints or should I say paw prints and they looked like those of an otter. I couldn’t find any spraint or a slide nearby but this did look like the work of an otter that had decided to take on the signal crayfish. The otter is the last creature that I would describe as a litterlout, vandal or bully. Their grace and beauty is something to behold and I hope that I will be lucky enough to spot one on this stretch of water soon.
The signal crayfish is a very unwelcome intruder to our rivers and lakes bringing with it a disease that is decimating our native crayfish. There are also blamed for destroying redds but I have not actually seen it. Signal crayfish are interesting characters. Actually ‘interesting’ might not be the right word – belligerent could be a bit closer, they act like a cross between an undersized lobster on acid and a polar bear with a sore head. A creature with real attitude. If challenged in the water they will either swim away backwards or put their pincers in the “air” and mutter the words – “think ya ‘ard enough do ya”. The otter obviously not only thinks it is hard enough but actually enjoys proving it. Could it be that the signal crayfish is not that unwelcome if it helps the otter make a comeback.
Two weeks ago I noticed that a birdbath and stand had been broken in our garden – no it wasn’t the magpies having a family communal bath. A quick check around the area pointed to the culprit, a fox had decided to have a drink and had overbalanced the birdbath and gravity had finished it off. I have noticed that gravity often seems to be the guilty party in many accidents and disasters sometimes on its own but more often with an accomplice.
I have decided that the only litterlouts, vandals and bullies in nature are us; on dry land the magpie and the fox come a close second in this country. What about the signal crayfish, well under water he just has an attitude problem and some powerful pincers.
Maybe people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones (or anything else hard for that matter not even a signal crayfish is not as hard as he thinks he is).