Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
Before I built some walk-in fruit cages I grew strawberries along the garden fence. This was a row of posts with three strands of plain wire at about 30, 60 and 90 cm height. I used to make a railing, parallel to the bottom wire and about 1 m away, out of long bamboos supported on rocks or bricks. Then I tucked pigeon netting over the lowest wire, weighed it to the ground with more rocks, stretched it above the strawberry plants and over the rail, and weighed that edge to the ground. Then all I had to do was tuck up the ends and weight them down to create a moderately effective fruit cage.
I say moderately effective because I think birds will push themselves under the edge of the netting to get in. Spaced out rock weights on the net’s skirt did not keep them out. Weighted lengths of scrap wood did a better job.
One sunny day I went up the garden, accompanied by Tasha, our then rescue dog. I started midway along the strawberry bed, lifting the skirt to pick fruit for lunch. Gradually I became aware of a loud “cheep cheep”, “cheep cheep” and turned to look. A young blackbird, which had got inside the cage that morning, had scuttled away from me, unseen, and was now trapped in the low, blind end of the cage. Tasha had seen it and wondered what it was. With curiosity, not animosity, she reached out an exploratory paw and touched it.
“Cheep cheep.”
‛Hey!’ Tasha thought. ‛A new squeaky toy!’ She looked at it for a second or two and dabbed it again.
“Cheep cheep.”
Every five second she would dot the bird, just enough to make it squeak, and stand back satisfied, staring at it. I chuckled as I watched. After a few rounds of ‛dab, cheep cheep’ I made Tasha sit a few feet away and raised the net. The young blackbird flew off none the worse for the experience, probably full of my strawberries, and with a great story to tell.
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