Grow Your Own Magazine

Today I rescued another two birds trapped in someone's badly constructed fruit cage. That's three in a week.

There were great big head-size holes in the netting, where a bird can get in. Unfortunately they can't always find their way back out again. If it had been in there for more than a day or two, I think it would have died of thirst in this weather.

PLEASE people ~ check your netting for holes and gaps. Peg it down well with bricks or pegs, and don't leave loose bits flapping around that can tangle around birds' legs.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

I really don't think people should net anything that they can't check every day. We NEED our birds (pigeons excepted! ) to eat up the pests.

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It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad dressing.

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Sept 7th 2008

I must admit that untill recently I was begining to think that I had not built a fruit cage but a flight avairy.

Every day it semed that there was either a blackbird or robin in there. Found a gap by the gate but seemed to do no good even when I fixed that.

Then I spotted the blackbird go under the gate and after about 2/3 minutes, scampered out under it again.

Fixed that but still had the robin.

Eventually I spotted him on the roof of the cage, run along the supporting wires and pop through the roof, again a couple of minutes later he hopped along the upper wire of the blackberry bed and dived through a gap.

On looking closer I found that where I had joined two runs of netting together, I had left a gap.

Had no more birds since but the robin does watch from the top of the cage while I'm digging outside and is down like a shot when I move away.