A biological dilemma today. Two fine blackbirds have built their nest again this year in a really stupid place where the chicks can be got at easily by cats as well as the crows. Do I get a crow trap, a lovely device which uses the crows instinct to be social to catch three at a time and clear our area temporarily of crows or do I just leave them to their biological fate? My line so far is that if birds are that stupid to rear their young in such precarious places Natural Selection should put a brake on their obviously not very good genetic thinking and they don't rear young this year.

The black birds nest is about half a metre above the ground in some greenhouse shelving that Fiona has left outside about a metre from the back of our house and right next to the tap that she uses for watering. It is a great sheltered spot, South West facing but again it can take the brunt of the Westerly wind which lowers the temperature, results in the chicks being hungry, because they need more energy to grow and keep warm but the blackbirds feed them at a fairly fixed rate so the chicks will die. Sometimes I wish I never knew these things!