Feeding the birds

Standing at the living room window on Saturday morning, Anna and I watched the Blue Tit flit in and out of the bird box on the tree. It moved almost too quickly for the eye to follow, parachuting to the ground and then surging up again, as if checking the distance of the fall.

We hadn’t had a feathered resident in the box since it was erected last summer and so the Blue Tit’s ministrations felt long overdue.

Before I knew what was happening, Anna had opened the window and was moments away from chucking out her breakfast.

“What are you at, clown?” I demanded, the toast and Nutella on the cusp of being jettisoned.

“I was gonna give it something to eat?” she replied, her face asking its own question: What’s the big deal?

“If someone gives a bird some chocolate, they’re basically selfish,” I said.

Anna looked as me as if to say, “The aul boy must be letting air out somewhere. Sure chocolate couldn’t hurt a fly.”

I could see this was the case and so to clarify my point, I continued, “There’s a thing inside chocolate which is toxic to birds. It’s called theobromine – I think – and it can make them really sick. You know the way you’re not keen on dark chocolate?”

“Yeah,” Anna replied.

“Well, the darker the chocolate, the more dangerous it is for birds. So you should never give a bird any chocolate. Anyone that does isn’t looking at the bigger picture and only wants to feel good about themselves. They think by giving a bird a piece of chocolate, they are giving it a treat but the opposite is true.”

“What if a bird ate some chocolate by mistake?” Anna asked, nonchalantly.

“If a bird ate any chocolate by mistaken, like if it found it some which had fallen on the ground, it would depend how dark it was and how much it had eaten.

I watched the wheels turn in Anna’s mind. I think I could even hear them and the music sounded like the opening theme to the Magic Roundabout.

At that moment, Waffle trotted into the living room with the air of a dog who had recently been up to badness or had found a map and was on his way. Then I noticed he was leaving a trail of muddy footprints across the carpet. I rolled my eyes. As if in response, Waffle coughed up what looked like a ball of hair. I rolled my eyes again. “I’ll sort that out later,” I told Anna.

“So would it not be safer for birds if we just didn’t keep any chocolate in the house at all?” Anna suggested, ignoring Waffle.

My own wheels turned.

“That might be a bit extreme,” I said, eventually. “It would only really be dangerous if we bought a stone of dark chocolate and chopped it up and fired it around outside.”

I didn’t know is this was true or not but I was trying to assuage Anna’s fears.

“Actually,” I continued. “Feeding the birds Nutella on toast probably wouldn’t help Waffle either.”

“How come?”

“Well, if the birds ate the chocolate and then they were sick and then Waffle somehow managed to find that sick and he ate that or maybe he eats a dead bird that had been killed by chocolate, then that could make him sick. You know he’s allergic to everything anyway, so eating toast or Nutella or birds, probably isn’t going to do him much good at all. Also, chocolate is toxic to dogs as well.”

I spared a glance for the hound, who was sniffing at the regurgitated ball of hair. I rolled my eyes again.

“So what you’re telling me,” Anna said. “Is that if I fed the birds Nutella on toast, I might end up killing Waffle by mistake?”

I spared another glance for the hairball-sniffing, muddy-footed hound licking his under-carriage. He glanced up at me and wagged his tail, sending a shower of mud across the carpet.

“On second thoughts,” I said. “Just feed the ruddy birds.”