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Bird tables and a visit to Neil’s mum


Vet Neil McIntosh talks about a visit to his mum and decides to inform her of the dangers of her poorly maintained bird table


M


y dear departed Mum was batty beyond belief but that only made her more special. I loved her dearly but you had to be thick skinned. She could always be relied upon to be constructively critical of any article I wrote (“Such total tripe, darling!”) and, when I was on the telly, she would be the first on the phone to inform me I was looking a little ‘peaky’ and that I really shouldn’t wear that tie with that shirt. Despite my best advice at the time, she quite literally surrounded herself with six small dogs of equally eccentric character, who, along with her family, her garden and her bird table, were the centre of her life. To enter her house was an experience never to be forgotten. You didn’t ring the doorbell, because, like most of the technology in her house it didn’t work, but when you banged on the door your ears were assaulted by a yapping, combined chorus of two Yorkshire terriers, two Chihuahuas and two Affenpinschers. After a long pause and amid cries of, “Do shut up, dogs!” Mother would appear, outlined hazily through the frosted glass. “Come in quickly and don’t let the dogs out!” The door would open a crack and your foot was used to prevent the swarming mass


of diminutive canines escaping to the outside world. Once within the maternal home, and, interspersed by further yells of, “Do shut up! No not you Neil, I am talking to the dogs!” new house plants would be pointed out and cut flowers sniffed until, finally, we would reach the sitting room, which Mother called The Lounge. Here she would sit, half a dozen dogs vying for the best position on the comfortable chair around her, until eventually, calm was reached. Two dogs would be on her lap, one on each arm and two perched precariously on the top of the seat cushion to either side of her head, from where, mysteriously, they never ever fell. Like this, she reminded me of Queen Victoria on her throne, disapproving look never far away, surrounded by her adoring courtiers. But with a twinkle in her eye.


Any conversation was constantly interrupted by shouts of, “Oh look, a goldfinch.” “Did you see the size of that wood pigeon.” “Go away, nasty crow! (Perhaps a book would be thrown at the window to chase the black demon away.) “Leave the nuts to the wee ones!” It could be frustrating, but it was impossible to be irritated by such excitement. As I watched the birds landing on her table, pecking at the seed she left out, I would look towards her and open my mouth to tell her that numerous studies have shown that up to 50% of bird tables are badly contaminated with bird faeces containing Salmonella and that this bacteria is often the cause of deaths in birds feeding at these tables. Strangely, the degree of contamination is not so much affected by the number of birds visiting a particular table but by the species of bird involved. House sparrows


14 | Clyde Life – September/October 2013 @clydelifemag


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