the birds

The peahen and her chick are determined to come into the shop.  They made it in several times over the weekend, the mother being large enough to trigger the motion sensor that opens the sliding doors.  I don't think peafowl are the world's brightest birds, but they are not completely stupid, and have worked out that it is warmer, drier and a lot less windy inside the shop than outside in the plant centre, and that there might be cake crumbs.

I shooed them away from the doors several times, but went into the shop at one point to find the gardener and the manager advancing purposefully on a wicker basket full of cut-price strimmer lines.  The gardener reached behind it, and scooped up the peachick, which shrieked in furious protest.  Remarking that he ought to wring its neck, he deposited it outside the back door.  Later on, while I was on the telephone to a charming and rather grand woman from Kensington, discussing her Drimys lanceolata, which had been accidentally over-watered in its pot, the mother and baby were back again.  Entering the shop from the far end, they meandered in stately fashion until they stood in front of the cafe counter, at which point the mother deposited a neat blob of excrement.  I did not think I could remonstrate with the peafowl, or call for help over the radio, while being polite to a Kensington grandee, so sidled towards the back door, which mercifully opened.  The pea family stalked out, and once I'd finished my phone call I went to get some paper towels to clean up the blob.

After they gave up with the shop, they hung around outside our staff room for a bit.  I suspect the young gardener of feeding them.  The hens seem keen to get in as well, since the young gardener joined the staff.

Calling the peachick a baby makes it sound very sweet and tiny.  It is quite sweet, but although it sticks close to its mother at all times, it is by now the size of a small to medium chicken.  A little patch of peacock blue feathers is just starting to show on the back of its neck.  The peacock appeared briefly in the plant centre, but he has nothing to do with the care of his developing offspring, preferring to hang around with the guinea fowl.

A van load of rare magnolias and other desirable plants arrived from a nursery in Devon, but I didn't get to help unload them because I was minding the shop.  Then the van wouldn't start, and the nurseryman had to wait in our car park until the AA turned up.  That's probably all his profit on the magnolias, gone on the next garage bill.  It's a desperate way to make a living, propagating rare plants.  The expected delivery of reconstituted stone urns never came at all, because their lorry broke down before getting as far as us.