Little Things

I’m ill. Messing up job interviews, not going to work, drinking tea instead of coffee type of ill. And on the TV they were saying that this weekend will be a good one for bird watching with the autumn migration in full swing. I won’t be going anywhere.
But from in here, there are still things, little things, to see and to comfort me that I’m not totally missing out. Eight in the morning, starlings fly over the houses gathering in their feeding flocks. Among one such flock is a smaller bird, finch size, keeping up, before breaking away, presumably on realising that it’s joined the wrong group. A small number of starlings continue to use and argue over the hole in our storm porch (I like the name ‘storm porch’, I wish other parts of the house could have names that promised such excitement). As one of the small developing flocks passes over, a starling on the gutter dips then flies off to join the others, the sudden change from hopping and squabbling to direct flight indicating this starling has more important things to do. A flight that seems to recognise the promise of a new day, this it what it has been waiting for.

And in the back garden things are starting to happen as well. Fifteen species this week, and they’re all welcome. Yes, even the almost universally derided woodpigeons. Their small patches of colour shimmer in the light. And the demonised magpie. Imagine how people would marvel at its proud posture, its exquisite shape and markings if it weren’t so common. The starlings bicker at the fat balls, robins, goldfinches and blue tits bring colour. Delicately shaded collared doves open their wings to show their palate of greys in flight. Then there’s the joy of discovery, scanning among 40 odd house sparrows in a feeding frenzy to find that are two of their number are in fact tree sparrows. Tree sparrows don’t get pushed around. Even when so outnumbered they seem to get plenty of feeding perch time. The house sparrows wait their turn, only occasionally and usually unsuccessfully trying to oust these close relatives. And at night I have heard disembodied contact calls of incoming redwings.
From time to time all the birds on the hedge drop down among the thin twigs, as if a network of trap-doors has been simultaneously opened. Sometimes the birds have misidentified something large and harmless as a threat, sometimes a dark shape that is certainly sparrowhawk banks and beats its brief passage through the garden, trying its luck along the hedgerow.
Small things, brief glimpses, but all things that make being indoors not so bad, as  long as I’m near a window.
 
This blog post was brought to you by Vicks Vaporub.