Mice.

Friday night: what do you expect? [hgrin]

This thread seems to have gone somewhat surreal?

....James May would be brilliant at making mousetraps, possibly even out of leggo...

James May was my friend's 'secret fancy' [there was something a few years back about 'who is your secret fancy?']. The one thing I will say in Clarkson's defence is that he did a series a few years back where he travelled round Europe [sans his chums from TG] that was really interesting and good fun. I think he just behaves how all men really want to behave but daren't, and serves a purpose as a sort of yardstick to make all other men look terribly grown up and sensitive. [My secret fancy was Andrew Marr, but that was before he turned out to be a cad and a bounder.....]

yeh well for me it would have to be Hammond, it's great being married to a big beefy ex-rower, so he would be a change... if i had to...
JC slightly queasy making from that point of view. Is anyone going to fess up to fancying him???

Green parakeets have taken over the area around Richmond and Kingston - hundreds, if not thousands of them. Silverfoxygran - think you hit the nail on the head - the cat's been catching the mice and upsetting the magpies' larder. Anyway he's looking a bit better today, if a little scruffy!

JessM, I think James May would fit into my pocket. He has a sense of humour and talks sense a lot of the time.

Ah jessM you slipped in on annobel's blindside and tucked it away!

Mice to TG and back to mice sort of...

If mice did use computers ( little ones) what would they call a mouse?

Perhaps they would use one of those roller ball things - operating it with their tails while typing with their paws...

(often thought having a tail would be useful and evolution made a mistake getting rid of ours)

JessM the doting grandma salutes another Hammond afficionado...
Really of the 3 chaps on TG it's only clarkson who is the real wind up merchant - Hammond and May both talk (mostly) a lot of sense.

So Annobel if you had to take one of the three mousketeers home with you. if you really, really had to. Would it be Richard, Jeremy or the other one?

Maybe, JessM as long as he keeps his facetious mouth shut!

Afraid parakeets eat fruit and veg.
Actually Richard Hammond is rather mouse like isn't he. Kinda cute, appealing beady brown eyes looking up at you in a "take me home and look after me" kinda way...

Annobel

YOUR challenge is now....
to take it from Mice to J Clarkson... and back to mice...
Go on...

We have jays and see them quite often from the time the apples on the tree are edible right through the winter. Then they vanish into the woods (I suppose) during nesting time and reappear when it's time to check out the apple supply. Doesn't take them long to strip a whole tree. We don't mind as it's a very old apple tree that has fallen over and taken root via its branches. The apples are very small and wormy. Great jay food.

dcmg, I was just wondering how we'd managed to change this thread from mice to birds, but now you have deftly switched it back. Well done!

In this south london suburb we have quite a lot of birds that are quite surprising at times there are still sparrows here and have seen woodpeckers

But the dominant birds are crows and magpies - we have a lot of large trees around.

However this year there are new arrivals moving in..... Parakeets!
There are a lot in this part of London but have only seen them flying over but now a group seems to have moved in to one of the trees.
Bright green with red beaks!
Have seen some quite fierce stand offs with magpies!

Do parakeets eat mice?

I know they are there, but they don't often come down into the gardens, except in the winter to see what there is in the bird feeders, and when they are feeding their young in the spring.

When I was staying somewhere outside London earlier this year there was a Jay in one of the trees in the garden. It was a huge garden and I didn't have my bins with me,so I couldn't see it very well, but it seemed to be in the same place at the same time each day, and followed the same 'flight path'.

I see them a lot because I am surrounded by oak trees here. They hang around in twos and I usually see them plummet to the ground to gather up acorns. My dog stands by the door growling at them but they ignore her - beautiful birds.

Does anyone see Jays very often? They're supposed to be quite common, but I've hardly ever seen them. Such a beautiful colour.

Several years ago, I watched a pair of crows diligently building a nest high up in a birch tree across the brook at the end of my garden. I had the binoculars on them while I lay in bed in the morning! After a year, they abandoned it and it was taken over by a pair of magpies which finished it off with their characteristic dome and have had it now for the past three years. The crows occasionally come back and have a look but are ferociously warned off by the magpies.

I read somewhere that when a prime magpie territory falls vacant the dominant birds vie for the chance to take over the nest site and all the more junior birds in the area gather to watch the dominance battle to see how it turns out. So that is probably what you witnessed. More like a boxing match than a wedding.
Good looking birds but they do eat a lot of eggs and nestlings of small birds.

I'll never forget years ago seeing my little black cat sitting on a fence near a magpie that was hurling abuse at him. The farmer used to put a 'Larsen' [?] trap in the field which I thought was cruel until he pointed out how many songbirds we now had. Saw a 'magpies wedding' years ago when I was walking in the Peak District. Hundreds of them; like starlings they were.

Maybe that's why there seem to be so few cats around here - a plethora of crows, magpies, rooks, jackdaws, jays... Mind you, the four labradors next door might have something to do with it too.

Goodness me. Magpies and co obviously thought cat was competition in the local predation market...

Bellesnan that's really sad - hope he heals quickly and his pride is not too badly dented. Shame the magpies weren't keeping themselves busy catching the mice and rats.

... as for the bill... oh dear.