The best laid plans of mice and men.

We're blessed with a large-ish and mature garden here in Hampshire, and we share the cottage and its grounds with our 4 cats. (In fact the cats are the whole reason we live here, but that's another story.) Of course we also share the garden with a great deal of wildlife - on the ground many field mice, voles and other small furry rodents, and in the air there are Red Kites circling, Jays, Blackbirds, Finches, Tits of all varieties, and Woodpeckers - all encouraged to feed beneath the branches of the various apple trees in the orchard with the presence of seeds and nuts.

Last summer I decided to further encourage birdlife to visit the garden by constructing a bird table from offcuts of previous projects, and old wood stripped from the cottage as we've refurbished since taking up residence 4 years ago. It was a relatively straightforward job, as you can see in the picture below.

A little bit of wood preservative, and mounted on a squared-off old stump on Apple Tree #1, the bird table looks the part, and provides an attractive feature to attract small birds when 'baited' with seeds.

Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. We've long been aware of the obvious conflict between our love of watching the local wildlife, and attracting it into the garden so we can easily observe, and our 'ownership' of the feline foursome, with their combined hunting prowess. It wasn't long before the conflict was illustrated perfectly by Bob.

Thankfully they seem rather less prolific up there than they are on the ground, and the birds are generally VERY aware of their presence. But definitely one to watch, even if binoculars aren't necessary to identify which one of the cats is up there.