Pole Dancing by Vivien Teasdale

Well, when you’re sitting in a caravan with the rain rattling down on the roof, you have to have something to do, don’t you? So, stuck inside, we put the bird pole outside the window and sat back to watch.

First came the blue and great tits, squabbling and fluttering from the peanuts to the fat balls. Their young ones came too, happily helping themselves until mum or dad came near, then there was a sudden flurry of wings, a gaping maw and the parent bird obligingly stuffed food down the nearest mouth. I’ve always had the feeling that it’s children who train their parents, and now I know.

That lot were soon shifted off by the woodpeckers – greater spotted ones, and we spotted them again and again as they wolfed down the contents of the feeders. For a while we were quite excited at the thought that we were watching a different variety – middle spotted woodpeckers, never before recorded in Britain. Then we read the book again and realised that the one with the red topknot was actually a juvenile. They don’t get the red patch on the back of the head until later. Oh, well, at least we hadn’t announced our discovery to the world before checking.

In turn the woodpeckers were chased off by a jay. If you’ve never seen one close up, they are beautiful birds, much bigger than you think and with a large, vicious beak. No wonder all other birds gave way to this visitor. He simply went for the peanuts and ignored the fat balls completely. Almost always when he left, he carried off a couple of peanuts, presumably for a later snack.

He was not the only one who wanted the peanuts. Cyril the squirrel sat on the grass and coveted them. Then he tried climbing the pole. It’s obviously quite difficult to do so with little paws that won’t quite go round the circumference. Even with four-paw drive, he only managed two steps up and one step back. Then he fell off.

They’re very persistent … things. He tried again and again until he got the hang of it and reached the top. Then he had to get across to the nut holder. He reached out. He fell off. He tried again. And again until he was finally swinging on the holder and, eventually, able to attack the wire mesh.

At this point, I rapped on the window. He leapt off and ran into the hedge. Five minutes later he was back. I rapped again. He looked at me. “You didn’t do anything before,” he seemed to say and ignored me. I went out and chased him off. The next time, I took the dog with me, so he did run a bit further away, but still returned within minutes. Battle lines drawn, I took drastic action. I greased the pole!

He sniffed at the pole. Decided the funny smell was harmless and leapt up. He slid smoothly and quickly down to the bottom. He sat on his bottom, still clutching the pole and thinking, “there’s something wrong here”. He tried again. Same result. He moved away, took a running jump to land three quarters of the way up the pole. He slid down again. He went away.

He brought a friend with him next time. They both contemplated the peanuts and the pole. They circled round and looked from a different direction. They retreated to the trees across the path, urged on by the dog who was trembling in excitement at seeing them so close.

Every morning after that, the squirrel would come, examine the pole and go away.

But a strange thing happened. One morning I looked out of the window. The peanut holder, which had been on the left, was now on the right. The fat balls were now on the left. I asked my husband why he’d changed them round. He thought I’d move them. Our nearest neighbours were more staid, more senior than us, so I can’t imagine they crept out of their caravan at midnight just to swap the feeders round. Anyway, the dog would have let us know if anyone had been sneaking about.

Possibly a pair of pigeons might have sat on the top, dancing in the moonlight, until they twirled the whole lot round. But I have a feeling that Cyril and his friend wrapped leaves around their paws so they could grip the pole sufficiently to turn it around, probably while muttering, “Ya boo, that’ll fox you.”

They were right, too.