Dear Readers, before I start complaining and rolling my eyes, here is some good news: Lily and Margot, the Blue-throated Macaws who went missing from London Zoo nearly a week ago, are home. They were found nearly sixty miles away from the Zoo, in Cambridgeshire. They apparently flew into the arms of their Keepers, and were soon munching away on pumpkin seeds, walnuts and pecans. They’ll be kept in quarantine for a few weeks, and will then be reunited with their parents. It’s so nice to know that they’re now safely ‘home’.
And now, back to the complaining and eye-rolling. Dear Readers, I hope you’ll forgive me having a rant here, but with four days to go until Halloween I am already seeing hedges locally garlanded with this stuff – artificial spiders’ web (in the image above also with some artificial spiders). The webs are made of plastic, which will never break down, but they also entangle everything from real spiders, late-flying bumblebees looking for somewhere to hibernate, hedge-roosting birds and even foxes. I am in general something of a Halloween sceptic – whilst I can see the point of a mid-winter festival to keep the demons at bay, I am less impressed with the volume of plastic tat, palm oil and sugar involved. I can see the fun in wandering the streets dressed as a vampire (something that I did to raise money for charity many moons ago), and generally people are very respectful of those who don’t want to be opening their door to werewolves and witches every five minutes for three or four hours, but I do draw the line at garrotting the wildlife. If people absolutely have to use this stuff, can they pop it on on 31st October and take it off on 1st November? Or come up with some more wildlife-friendly way to make an impression?
To be fair, I think a lot of people don’t even know about the impact of these things, but maybe that’s the problem. Until we really do consider our animal neighbours as part of our community, we’ll carry on thinking we’re the only important creatures on this planet. And yes, it’s absolutely true that habitat destruction, window-strike due to lights being left on in skyscrapers and global warming are far greater risks to wildlife of all kinds, but choosing not to use artificial spider web is an easy choice available to all of us, not something that requires a massive change in our habits.
Oh, and pumpkins. Make soup, roast the seeds, use the hollowed-out pumpkin as a bird feeder. Just don’t dump the blooming things in your local woodland, and don’t put them out as ‘food for the hedgehogs’, as it gives them (and many other animals) diarrhoea.
Rant over. What do you think? Curmudgeon or not?
Definitely not a curmudgeon. This is taking the American influence far too far. We never celebrated Halloween in this country – even when my children were young. The impact of American films, cartoons and the like is very strong and so I see a lot of parties and fund-raising events using the Halloween theme around this time. I doubt whether many people know anything about Halloween beyond pumpkins and ghouls anyway.
Halloween, when I was a child in South Yorkshire, consisted of a turnip lantern, carved by my father, on the 31st October. That was about it, certainly no trick or treating either.
My own rant aside: thank you very much for the update on the Macaws!
I was surprised to read how far the Macaws had flown, they must be very fit and healthy.
I agree with your rant about Halloween, far too much plastic and sugar. It seems so commercialised now. My own boys (in their 50s now) would happily wander the local streets and happily return with a few sweets. The highlight was the year my husband made flashing red horns for the youngest to wear. More recently a few neighbours we know would bring their own children to our door and a few sweets or a handful of small change and lots of admiration of costumes was all that was required.
As a child living on a farm in Hampshire Bonfire Night was a big thing. Lights hung in the trees along the route to that year’s site with a huge bonfire. A guy always made by the same tractor driver was at the very top. There was a well organized firework display and everyone held sparklers. Bags of sweets were handed round and my mother brought pre cooked jacket potatoes. It was great fun but I can still remember the cold feet in wellington boots.
Totally agree! Glad to see the Macaws were found too!
Completely agree, dear Bugwoman, well said. I’m tempted to wonder if people in more urban areas are overall less wildlife-conscious, but I could be wrong.
I’ve met both urban and country folk who are very tuned into their local nature, and people in both habitats who wouldn’t notice if a raven flew past and took their hat off, so I think it’s very individual! I do like that people in both habitats are becoming more concerned about their local plants and animals, though. In a way, that’s why the artificial spider web thing is just so annoying.
I think you should also level your rant at the manufacturers of all that plastic tat, but especially the web stuff. If nothing else they should put a warning on the side of the box and/or cans.
Ah, I do rant at the conpanies too, believe me, and have had words in my local hardware shop about this, and glue traps, and peat-based fertiliser. I’m surprised they don’t put their shutters down when they see me coming, bless them. It is a bit chicken and egg though – if people stopped buying the stuff, maybe the manufacturers would stop making it?
I’ve been harrumphing on this particular issue myself just lately. I don’t do Halloween but I can see the fun in it and kids love it, so to those who like it: go for it! But please do so with some consideration and some kind of ethical thought. One of the best Halloween decorations I’ve seen lately was basically a pair of ghosts, each made from a square of white sheet with eyes and mouth painted just off centre, draped over a coathanger and tied in at the neck. They were hung either side of a front door and swayed and swirled beautifully in the breeze. Best of all, they weren’t going to kill anything.