m
makes his presence felt and has always something to say, usually to shout abuse whenever I or the dogs dis turb him, so informing the whole area that we are about.
brightens the drab days of the Pennine winter with his black and white colouring. Likeable because he
Likeable because he
___________Ouflook____ My animal neighbours
PYAT, the magpie, is a garrulous neighbour who could perhaps be best described as a likeable rogue.
others of his family, he is a born clown, often nipping off twigs from the trees to drop on the dogs whilst he is safely perched out of harms way. When he thinks the dogs are resting, he can be brave enough to fly down and nip their tails; flying quickly to safety when he has roused them.
Likeable because, like
the mallard ducks have laid their green-shelled eggs, w'hen th e f ro g s have
he tree top dreys, w’hen
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bright objects. He also is a busy-body — he know’s every other creature’s busi ness, usually to his own advantage. He knows there t are young grey-squirrels in
He likes colourful and
spawned. Pyat keeps an eye on the
insects and grain, he will eat almost anything — grubs, mice, young rabbits, acorns, fruit, nuts, corn, bread, scraps and carrion.
happenings in the fields because, food-wise, he is an opportunist. Although he p re fe rs
Gardeners’ delights
ALBERT HARTLEY recalls some of the gardens and spectacles which have given him great pleasure over the years.
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50 years or so on the first fine day in February, I have visited the millions of snowr- drops at Rylstone and Lin ton, near Grassington. Near the Old Mill Dam, now’ a duck pond, in an ideal situa tion under a canopy of mature beech trees, they are left alone to reproduce and are fed by the autumn beech leaves. Further north east is the
however, have been to a number of lesser known places that have given me great pleasures in the hope that some of my younger readers will enjoy in future. Every spring for the past
valley of Farndale due north of the lovely village of Hut-
been privileged to visit a great many large and lovely gardens from North West Scotland, to most of the Cornish treasures. My thoughts this month
ALTHOUGH I am now confined to my home, I am happy to retain memories of my long gardening life. Over many years I have
visit in the last 1920s, as g a rd e n v an d a ls have removed some of the more accessible plants to die in their own gardens. But, nowadays, the local natural ists patrol the valley to pro tect the plants from such people. I think my early visit
v isit they were not so numerous as on my first
friends, I visited the “Pot Leek” Show in Ashington where the miner/gardener spent his leisure time grow ing these enormous fat short leeks for use and for the shows. They fed them on a variety of concoctions from pigeon manure to stale
after World War Tw’o, there were plates of gooseberries, white, green, yellow and red, each as big as plums and the top prize was a suite of furniture. What dedication those chaps must have had? I wish we had it today — what they fed the bushes on is no one’s business! Thanks to some “Geordie”
August, at Egton Bridge, a village on the River Esk a few miles west of Whitby, is staged the famous Goose berry Show, so far as I know the only one in the UK which has been in exis tence since about 1860. On my first visit, soon
here was responsible for my love of daffodils ever since. On the first Tuesday in
Within and around the old walled kitchen garden of Broughton Hall, extending to 37j acres this is the perfect country setting in which to choose your
garden requirements.
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some four miles from the village are “hosts of golden daffodils”; the wild or Tenby daffodil. Sadly however on my last
ton-le-Hole in the North Yorks Moors. Around E a s te r time,
beer and before the show they camped out on the allotments all night. The judges had to do a
mathematical sum to mea sure the cubic content of the
York in my young day was an allotment holder by the name of Russell, a chap similar, in many way to our own Joe Barwise. He had a 300 square yard plot full of lupins in all colours, but mostly pastel shades which he raised from seed. Some 10 years after my
In a southern suburb of
would say worse — a mur derer— for he kills and eats young song-birds in the nest, and he will make a good meal of the eggs of lesser birds if he finds them before they are hatched. It is for this reason that
swaggering, colourful neighbour, which I suppose is part of his charm. Pyat is certainly one of
many countrymen think that the magpie population is getting out of hand and should be contained in num bers. Pyat is an a r ro g an t,
my most interesting neigh bours, and the magpie may be yours as well, for he
age is not the black and white one sees at a distance
scavenges in the towns, and certainly likes the parks. Seen up close, his plum
first visit he had no less than six such plots full of lupins. There was born the famous Russell Lupins which we treasure today, all much more vigorous and colourful than the original blue and white. But he is a rougue. Many
□
TV coLmtjyman BI&C HALSAll' who lives at nfvt?er begins a new^series for Outlook on the birds S id^ im als that are his wildlife
when in pedantic, but sure and direct flight.
is shot with metallic tints of blue, purple, and green. He has a snow-white apron and epaulettes, and his long ser rated tail is his pride and joy. He always holds it clear of the mud to keep it clean, and his mate takes great pains in tucking it over her back so that it will not get damaged when she is brood ing her eggs.
The black of his feathers
ture usually, in my domain, built in the tops of the haw thorn hedge, but often quite high in other trees. The eggs, usually four or five in number, laid in April and May, have light green shells speckled with grey-brown marks, and rest on sheeps’ wool in a bulky nest which is a miniature fortress of interlaced sticks reinforced with mud carried up from the river bank.
The nest is a big struc
female magpie is taking a break from incubation, which is usually of three weeks duration, by a lat ticed dome. Pyat is a crow, a member
It is protected, when the
in ones or twos, but often the young of the single brood stay with their par ents for quite a while, which gives us the well-known rhyme — ‘One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret, never to be told.’
of the family of Corvidae, the family I regard as the most intelligent of all the bird families. Magpies are usually seen
I
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