Garden Visitors, April '04

Hen pheasant exploring our front garden.



One of the joys of Forest living! A neighbour awoke to find this large bullock had broken into her garden. We tried cajoling and beating with broom handles to shift it without success. We had to leave, so the lady of the house phoned the Forest authorities. Two policemen arrived first but were apparently more frightened than the lady. Eventually a man came from the Forestry Commission. He took a good look, then removed the his leather belt and, holding up his trousers with one hand, he whacked the animal repeatedly and hard until it wandered back out through the hole it had made in the fence. Three days later it broke back in, but this time another neighbour shifted it with a spade! Methinks they will have to replace the fence, which is getting on for forty years old...