Scared now

[altariel]

So in our back garden we have this amazing cherry tree (now much bigger than shown), and over the past couple of weeks it has been cooking up the most amazing crop (it's been hot then wet then hot again). Over the past week, the local blackbirds and starlings and assorted others have been feasting. Today I looked out and thought, "Right, time for my share," and out I went with a chair and this fine and sturdy piece of Lock'n'Lock.

The birds fled. I went round the tree for a while, picking and nomming, and I may have been humming 'Cherry Ripe'. And then I heard, up above me, high at the top of the tree, a murmuration of starlings. It became a clutter, then a gathering, then a concentration and then a fucking scary load of starlings, all yelling down the road and out far into the fens that SOME BITCH WAS NICKING ALL THE CHERRIES. All of sudden I was starring in a Hitchcock movie.

Well, the other week I faced off a huge green-eyed and hissing black cat - nay, panther - that is trying to claim our garden as its territory and has been worrying the polyamorous blackbirds in the hedge, so I thought, "Starlings, no sweat," and picked on fearlessly. It was touch and go for a bit as they rocked the tree around and screamed obscenities at me and then, WHOOSH - they all flew off. In a cloud.

Now, pie.

Comments

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

You could have one of those giant fruit hats. Sit under the tree wearing that and BAM! Starlings for all!

I don't know why I'm offering you ways to kill and eat starlings.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I do have a recipe for starling somewhere in the house. I imagine you'd need a fair few for a dinner party, though.

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a very 15th century dish. Do you stuff the starling with a quail and then stuff the starling into a chicken and deep fry the whole thing?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's from a wartime recipe book called You Can't Ration These, and "Roast Starling" is in fact my favourite recipe in the book:

ROAST STARLING: After skinning the birds, clean them and roast them as you would sparrows.

[julesjones]

Does it have a recipe for wood pigeon? The local wood pigeons are far too convinced that humans are Perfectly Safe. They need to be read a recipe...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It has wood-pigeon pie, and grilled wood-pigeon ("Clean, pick, and singe a wood-pigeon...").

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

LMAO. No matter what else happens today, that recipe will carry me through.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-) We aim to please.