At the end of the carol service, the vicar invited us to stay for a cup of tea and a mince pie, to be served at the back of the church. Seeing me standing alone with my cup and saucer, one of the elderly parishioners approached with a smile of Christian welcome. I was afraid she was going to ask me if I knew that Jesus loved me. But instead she wanted to tell me how many squirrels she’d shot — 35 of the ‘beggars’ since October. They plunder her hanging bird feeders. She leans out of her bedroom window and pots them, she claimed, with a .22 air rifle.
Though delighted to hear it, I didn’t fully believe her. Years ago I tried to kill a rabbit with a .177 airgun and the business was so horrible and prolonged I vowed never again. ‘From what sort of range are you shooting them?’ I said. ‘Oh, 10, 12 yards,’ she said blithely. ‘And you just pot them?’ I said. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘Shameless beggars!’
I, too, put peanuts out in hanging feeders for the birds. Regular visitors include a sleek nuthatch and a fugitive woodpecker. The principal nuisance is a sparrowhawk, whose depredations are shockingly violent but fortunately rare. Lately, however, a solitary grey squirrel has learnt how to dismantle one of the feeders and empty the peanuts. If I see it, I go out and ask it what the hell it thinks it’s doing. It just sits there looking sweetly at me. I also own a .22 air rifle, bought many years ago as a birthday present for my son. He had no enthusiasm for it, however, but I keep it still in the back of a cupboard.
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