Bird Feeder Blues

"Those my friend,' said the man at the market, 'are nuts of premium quality, high in oil content, mould free, of an exquisite vintage.' That's where the trouble began.

The word soon spread, the quiet of the surrounding countryside exploded into a frenzied cacophony of birdsong, a demented dawn chorus.

They came in waves through blackening skies, flocked from miles around. The garden soon resembled a futuristic Heathrow in the midst of a post-apocalyptic evacuation.

Daredevil manoeuvres and aerial dogfights around the bird feeder for its bounty of premium quality peanuts.

Kamikaze songbirds crashed to their deaths against conservatory windows, crows with murder in their eyes, blue tits in Spitfire dives, flamingos, squawking parrots, pugnacious canaries, psychotic finches, all in a fight to the death. Birds of a feather expiring together.

I cowered down beside my toast and two boiled eggs and watched the avian Götterdämmerung.

A blue sky returned as suddenly as it had disappeared. The shredded wire mesh of the bird feeder hung from an ash tree, swinging in the gentle breeze. The rolling hills layered with dead birds as far the eye could see.