The Birds

Drunkeness level 0/5

This morning I managed to recreate a scene made famous by one of my favourite directors. The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it. The scene in question is when Tippi Hedren is outside the school and the birds begin to gather one by one on the climbing frame behind her. When the frame is full, and they try to evacuate the children they attack.

Anyway, I digress. This morning I did my bit for mother nature by cutting up all the crusts of homemade bread I had in my bread bin and putting them in a carrier bag. On the way to work, as I walked through the park, I left a trail behind me for the wildlife to feast on. (Actually I felt a bit like Hansel and Gretel heading to the gingerbread cottage but without the lederhosen)

I turned round and saw one magpie attempting to pick up a chunk of bread. Obviously what I defined as 'small chunks' when I was cutting up the bread was not the definition this bird would have used!

I moved on, sowing the crumbs as I went, and turned round again. Now there were three magpies and a HUGE seagull following me. I'd gone from Hansel and Gretel to the Pied Pier of Hamelin, swapping rats for birdlife.

As I got to the end of the park, I still had a handful of cubes left so I made a little pile near a park bench and table. I turned round once more, only to see a flock of seagulls, a multitude of magpies, two or three blackbirds, a handful of wood pigeons and one tiny sparrow (I think he was lost, or he was only there as a guest of one of the blackbirds).

Needless to say I dumped the empty bad in a nearby bin and made a swift exit. I wasn't about to find out what effect two-week old homemade bread has on a city dwelling seagull.

Hitchcock would have been proud of me, and I didn't need trained creatures or plastic replicas either.