I read an amusing thing recently. My office is part of a really beautiful campus that has a small river running through it and quite a lot of land attached. The note was the minutes of a meeting to discuss the ongoing maintenance of the flora and fauna on the grounds. 

Apparently, because we're close to an airport, there are restrictions on the number of birds that are allowed on the grounds. Now you might ask yourself 'how do you restrict the number of birds?' I mean it's not as if you can put up barbed wire fences to keep them out. It would be nice to think that we had garishly-attired scarecrows pegged out across the lawns, like some weird crucifixtion scene, but we don't. Instead, apparently, we're simply not allowed to have trees or bushes that bear fruit that would attract birds. 

Unfortunatley, though, the river has fish in it and has attracted not one but two herons. Now one would be okay but we're not allowed two! The second heron is therefore being encouraged to leave, which brings to mind an image of the groundsman stalking around shooing the heron away, or maybe he's got some spotty-faced apprentice who he makes do all the dirty work.

Also included in the groundsman's tasks was removing detritus from the river, which revealed that the river also contains leeches! I hope they're paying him danger money cos his troubles don't end there. You see we've also got a pesky escapee mink who has evaded all attempts thus far to catch him. The task of entrapping the critter is made complicated by the fact that we don't want to harm the otters.

What? Otters, mink, herons and leeches?! Forget doing any work, we should get a TV crew in and make a fortune from one of those animal diary programmes. In this credit crunch doom-laden time, fluffy bitey animals is what we need!

If there are any other weird animal antics, you'll hear it here first. It won't feature badgers, as they've been moved to a new home, but I'm hoping that we may diversify to become a zoo and bring in big cats and polar bears. At least, that would give the mink something to think about! 

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