A Selection Box is for Life, not just for Christmas

Thursday 27th December 07

ooooh.... I'm as full as a bull's bum. Waddled out birding in the afternoon, the usual look round the patch. Ahhh, it's so sad. You know how it is. All the kids want a selection box of low quality chocolate for Christmas, cos they look all cute and appetising in the shops (and ALL their friends are getting one, of course). But they don't think it through. They don't want to clear up the mess, and they don't realise how long they live. So within a few days of Christmas, they're being discarded and drowned in the local burn. This was the scene around Newtonhill this morning.

But the good news is… there’s no need for it. There are very good Selection Box rescue centres all around the country, where they never put a healthy selection box to sleep. But mostly, remember parents… don’t just buy them on a whim. Personally I think you should have to apply for a licence before you’re allowed to own one.

A few birds as well - Mount Doom, the local dungheap, was being spread and ploughed onto the stubble up by the A90, so there were a few hundred gulls to be sifting through - nearly all Herring Gulls, but about 50 Black-headed Gulls and a few Common Gulls. On the beach, 19 Ruddy Turnstones and 1 Common Redshank, and a pair of Common Stonechats among the seaweed. Surprised to see them wintering here, but then again I was surprised to see them summering, then surprised again to see them 'possibly on passage', andnow wintering. Will I eventually accept they're just 'resident'? Find out in the next exciting adventure of Pigs... in... SPACEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!