Nut Thieves
Some of us have been watching the total disappearance of one of our kindly fruits, the walnut. One tree in the Midlands has been the scene of a hot competition between grey squirrels, rooks and jackdaws. The rook on balance is a useful bird, but it cannot resist the walnut and begins to plunder the trees long before the outer green case has begun to soften. The rooks carry them off before their beaks can break them open, and this year I have found several, very freely pock- marked by their beaks, lying about a common that hr's no walnut trees In its immediate neighbourhood. The grey squirrels are rather less persistent, but work more quickly. In my own garden every single cob and filbert was filched long ago, but the robbery was not brought home to :uy particular culprit, though a vagrant grey squirrel was suspected.
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