A Birdy Day - Lowlands
by - 15:21 on 11 June 2008
Funny places, the waiting areas of main car dealerships when you’re filling in a few minutes until they’ve finished the servicing of your car. That particular and expensive smell of new vehicles; the background banter of the chippy salesmen. Then there is the coffee machine, with its noxious choices, as a final act of desperation. But this time it was different. There was a stir. A little knot of mechanics and odd-job men were gathering outside. The reception desk was very animated. I could hear discussions about ponds, boxes and something along the lines of ‘they’ve got them all out, with the mother, except there’s one still under the blue RAV 4.’It was a carpark duck rescue. You know the sort of thing. Mother duck lays eggs in inappropriate place, under small tree at edge of shrub border. Ducklings hatch with a two-lane highway and several sets of traffic lights between them and nearest open water. All work, traffic, etc stops till it’s all sorted out. It happens somewhere every year and sometimes it makes the local news. But well done to the staff at Struans of Perth www.struans.co.uk for avoiding this stramash. Instead, they gently bundled the family into a box then drove them to a pond. That’s why there was a fuss outside in the carpark. (Will duck boxes become a Toyota accessory?) This should really qualify as an extra mile, on the assumption that if they go to that sort of trouble for a duck who probably doesn’t even own a Toyota, then they’ll probably look after their customers. (They certainly washed my car after its service, perhaps because its muddy condition would have distracted the duck family. I should by now also have inserted a picture of a duck, but, what the heck, everyone knows what a cutesy duck looks like.)
As it was still early, I had time for breakfast, so off I went to Struans’ neighbours, Dobbies. They sell everything for gardens – and I say this as a kind of understatement. www.dobbies.co.uk They also have a spacious café where they serve a bargain breakfast (How do they do it for £4.50? And the eggs are fried fresh. A much better plateful of tasty food than a whole lot of city hotels I could name.) I was savouring the last mouthful of black pudding when a robin landed on the table. Then another hopped past. This one had spots – a sure sign it was a youngster. And there seemed to be another little bird overhead. Obviously, a robin family had wandered in through the large glass doors of the cafe. Much flapping of newspapers and napkins later, by staff and customers, and the birds had been gently ushered back into their proper habitat. So I suppose that counts as Dobbies working with nature.
Later, on the way home I had to hurriedly stop and get out of the car to shoo a young blackbird, sitting forlornly in the road, back into the safety of the hedgerow. It’s that time of year, I suppose.
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