Sunday 07 March
It’s beautifully quiet right now. I can hear the gentle tick-tock of the clock on the shelf, the occasional gurgle of my tummy tackling a coffee and almod croissant, and the dishwasher has beeped it’s final beep of its cycle.
The rest of the family are out doing drop-offs for country walks and drop-ins for grocery items missed in the big shop. And it’s beautifully quiet right now. The only other sound is that if the more audibly extroverted birds outside the front and back of the house. It’s so quiet I can hear both.
We have a robin – I think just the one on our patch – who fills his lungs and pipes out his pessary pop-song from the mid-branches of the oak tree out front. He’s there first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening and pretty regularly throughout the day. And he does so to proclaim to the bird world (and probably wider world too), but mainly to other robins, that this is his territory.
They are of course famously protective of their space, which makes me wonder why more countries have not taken up the little red-breasted robin as their national bird. Of course, it tends to be the eagle; strong, powerful, big. And the mighty talons and beak provide weapons that could rip right through human flesh let alone smaller creatures. But the robin is brave, fearless in fact. It will take on other birds and even attack cats if it feels in any way threatened. It may even have a go at itself if it catches a glimpse of its own reflection in a window or puddle. Leave a tin of paint out in the garden with a red patch on its label, and see what fire and fury may prevail.
I’m sat in the back garden, soil drying on my hands, just sitting and soaking up the atmosphere. I am surrounded by birds and birdsong. The now less conspicuous clackety call of the Magpie is being over layered by the soloist robin and the blackbird and by the chipping and chirping of the tits and sparrows. Also, common across the UK but rare to our back garden, I can also make out the Dunnock and in fact see one skipping around along with a blackbird underneath some of the hanging feeders, picking up the fallen spoils.
Then, in the sound-distance, like the clock in the front room earlier, the unmistakable drumming of the woodpecker. But I think my favourite sound today, has been the bubbling conversation between the Long-Tailed Tits and the constant sounds of small wing beats as they fly from perch to feeder to perch and off again. Perfect.
The Bald Birder 