Birds of a feather

Yesterday Lulu rescued a pigeon from the flu, and this morning I was attacked by a street duck.

On Sunday I was working at the gate when we heard a frantic screechy and scrabbly noise coming from the chimney flue. We edged over there nervously and I started to open the door when Lulu said 'But what if its a rat?', at which point we both backed off and got a man from the beer garden to tackle it instead.

We called up pest control who told us it would be a pigeon, probably a baby one, that had fallen down the chimney by accident. Unfortunately, pest control were dead busy and couldn't come round, so yesterday Lulu and Alex dismantled the fire, sawed off the bottom of the chimney and rescued the stupid pigeon who promptly flew off to sit back on top of the chimney.

This morning I was walking across the car park when an agitated woman clutching her bag to her chest raced past me, 'Quick', she cried, 'It might get us!'

I turned to see an irate street duck hurtling across the Duke of York car park with ill intent in its small beady duck eyes, so I too turned and ran. It chased us across the road and nearly all the way to the Castle, before hissing and walking into a bush. Me and the woman paused for breath, and agreed how unusual that it was to be chased by a duck at half 7, then went our separate ways.

It was as I walked down Rapists Alley that i heard a rustle and a 'quack, quack, quack' from the wall above me. I looked up only to find a street duck had made her nest on top of a brick wall, all covered in Ivy and was watching me with her beady duck eye through the foliage.

What hope is there for the birds of Oxford?

(I apologise for the lack of photo's. Lulu is sending me a picture of the pigeon but I didn't dare stop to take a picture of the angry duck in case she pecked my nose off and the nesting, insane, Ivy duck, was too high up to be photographed)