Day 81

Tuesday 09 June

Today the government have done an about turn on their ‘ambitions’ for all primary pupils to return to school this summer. It was the number one story on the radio when we some this morning but is far from a surprise. To safely follow social distancing guidance, schools would need to be double the size. The other major news item today was the burial of George Floyd in Houston, Texas – but the reverberations of his murder by a white policeman about ten days ago continue to be heard around the world through protests.

We went on our family dog walk this evening just around the local lanes. We have become very familiar with the route but at this time of year every day seems a little different.

The layers of birdsong are still a real tonic which I am finding really easy to lose myself in even whilst walking. However, to be honest, I am regularly the tail-ender returning home after the others who leave the front door open for me. I can’t help but stop and see if I can pick out the differnet bird calls, and I am certainly getting better. On top of the stalwarts (blackbird, robin etc) I was able to identify a chaffinch, swallow, chiffchaf and reed warbler this evening.

We believe that the calls are from (largely) male birds and tend to either warn other birds to ‘keep-off’ their patch, or to advertise how much of a catch they are to the female of their species.

I decided to stand in the quiet down the lane leading to our house and record what I believe is a Song Thrush. Accidentally, I had the recorder on my phone at the ‘speech to text’ mode so, as it recorded the sounds, it converted them into english text. Here’s the recording and the ‘transcript’. I have really tried not to read too much into this but it is hard to shake the words from my head.

“Evie, Evie, Evie … … bury me even … … Mary, my dear … … Many read the movie EE… … See the seed … … Even by the sea … sea.”