Unexpected

By the door a note, neat handwriting on a discarded chip (crisps in UK) packet...a darting movement in the corner of my vision attracted my attention and I spun my head just as Ratty was dashing under the gate.  I will share his message with you.

Dear Hooman

Without wishing to seem the complaining sort, I observe that you invest extensively in restaurant design and menu choices for avian types and hedgehogs in your garden.  You have also granted them leaseholds on some prime bits of real estate, and I see that you are once again letting your front yard go 'feral' for the insects (a development I applaud in principle).  However, you seem to have overlooked my esteemed presence in your ecosystem and I would politely request that you consider providing food and environmental enhancements for me and my family.

It is unbecoming of a fine furred and bewhiskered charmer such as myself to have to squooze under the gate, scavenge rejected birdseeds off a table that has been paraded over by pigeons (filthy creatures, carry diseases), suffer the indignity of having to hide in a disused hedgehog house, and be rattled out of my brain by you banging the place with your broom handle.

With a little imagination on your part I am sure we could come to a more satisfactory arrangement, a wider range of comestibles for a more balanced diet, and some better fencing to discourage those felines that are constantly sniffing about your yard when they think you are not looking.

Your in anticipatory gratitude

Ratty

PS: and please explain why hoomans seem to think squirrels are cute and I am vermin - after all those grey tree-climbing braggarts are just like me with but more fur on those tails they flash about.  AND ..they eat the bird food, and steal eggs from the birds' nests..

And the reply...

Dear Ratty

You are indeed a fine looking fellow with most excellent fur and whiskers, and I enjoy watching you wash your ears with both hands, but although you and your extended family are well established in this country I understand that you are, like me, an alien.  Your ancestors arrived here as recently as the 1700's (about the time mine were venturing out into the world from which I have returned to this life in UK).  

Your presence in the eco-system is unfortunately not esteemed by my fellow humans, and any efforts by me to promote your welfare will be unwelcomed (and undone) by the humans who live around us.  That could, based on past experience, result in a particularly nasty end for you and I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the appearance, but not the taste, of the poisons they use - AND AVOID THEM.

In fact, better all round if you simply avoid humans, their habitations, their gardens, their sheds and garages, and most of all their rubbish.  Using crisps packets for stationery might be making a valid point, but do you know how many non-human lives are lost every year in encounters with the litter that humans discard into your environments?

I thoroughly recommend that you stick to the river bank, and as a mark of my regard for your safety I hereby put you on notice that I will be making liberal use of eucalyptus oil and peppermint oil in order to convince you that (among other things) your best interests do not lie in scavenging about under the bird tables in my backyard. (And as part of the deal I will endeavour to collect and remove as much as I can of that human litter which besmirches your natural environment and endangers the lives of your fellow wildlife.)

Yours...

F

PS - as for grey squirrels, don't get me started.... flashy, sneaky, thieving, show-offs...

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