I stumbled out of the back door early yesterday morning and caused the usual flurry of panicked fluttering as numerous blackbirds, sparrows, doves and tits rose up and flew off from all corners of the garden. All except for one bird, which sat watching me from the conservatory roof a few feet away, without the slightest hint of panic. Its sheer apparent fearlessness made me jump a bit though. At first glance I took it for a gull, such was its size, but quickly realised that it must've been some sort of pigeon or dove - I've never seen that particular colouration before though. Can anyone put an exact name to the species?
Meanwhile, here's an appropriately titled tune from 'Inferno', the excellent new Robert Forster LP (available here).
Feeding time in the garden over the weekend. The kids are growing up fast. No wonder he feels the need to let off steam every morning!
Because of staff holidays I was offered a stretch of early shifts last week, which meant getting out of bed at 4.30 and into work by 6am. It was a long haul, but I successfully negotiated the week despite feeling more knackered than usual by the end of it. One morning (I don't remember which, they all blur into one) I fuzzyheadedly checked my clock and saw that it was exactly 4am, leaving another half an hour to doze. The pre-dawn light was weak. All was still and absolutely silent, apart from Mrs S breathing gently beside me. I closed my eyes. It felt like little more than a blink, but when I opened them again, the volume of the world had increased to a cacophonous level. The dawn chorus was in deafeningly full swing. I looked at the clock. It read 4.12. Just 12 minutes had elapsed, but in that time the local robins, sparrows, wrens, cockerels and finches had all kicked off big style. Even the visiting cuckoo somewhere out on the marsh behind the house was joining in with gusto. Leading the charge, as always, was the neighbourhood blackbird population, one of which uses the ledge above the dormer window in our bedroom as a vantage point each morning for maximum volume and sound projection. 'Shut up' mumbled a half asleep Mrs S as I slipped out of bed.
Just lately, during my breaks at work, when not digging into the recent batch of decent new releases, I've been reacquainting myself with the music of the 1960s/70s Canterbury Scene and related spin-offs. This past week it was the turn of Steve Hillage, whose early solo albums were big favourites of mine as a teenager, until the advent of punk and post-punk set me off in a different direction. The opening track from his third LP, 'Motivation Radio', felt a particularly apt one to revisit.
On Wednesday afternoon, just half an hour after I'd read through C's brilliantly vivid post concerning her recent grisly encounter with a sparrowhawk (here), I went downstairs to make a coffee. On my way back up, I paused at the back window overlooking the garden and the marsh beyond, to take my first slurp. It was at this point I noticed the silence. The garden and sky above are usually busy with birdlife coming and going in a constant whirl of activity, but at that moment there was not one sparrow, tit, pigeon, starling, dove, dunnock or finch to be seen - or heard. I ran my eyes around the neighbouring rooftops and along our fence. Then I saw it. The very slightest movement. A well camouflaged sparrowhawk biding its time, on the lookout for a late lunch. For once my camera was nearby and I fired off a single, hopeful, shot in the general direction of the mass of greenery that blankets the fence towards the end of the garden. Can you see her?
No? I couldn't at first either. Hang on a moment, let me zoom in.
There she is. She may have been very still and very quiet (and very hidden!), but news of her presence had clearly spread through the local population - she was out of luck. It's been well over a year since we had an actual sparrowhawk kill in the garden, though sparrowhawks themselves are rarely far away. I heard a commotion in the sky not that long ago and looked up to see a large group of crows bullying and hectoring a lone sparrowhawk who appeared stubbonly reluctant to leave the area. Endlessly hassled and hugely outnumbered, it finally swooped off and away to find some peace and quiet.
Like C, we recognise some of our more frequent garden bird visitors and bestow (usually unflattering) names upon them - Stumpy, Lumpy, Dangle, Peg-Leg, Patch etc. Unlike poor old Limpy over at C's place however, for now at least, all the regulars remain present and accounted for.
Just over a week ago, for the first time this year, we heard a sound we've come to love more than almost any other - the screaming call of returning Swifts. Just a couple of birds to start with, twisting and turning in the skies above, but within a few days more had arrived, as gradually they began to re-familiarise themselves with their surroundings and the rooftop nesting spots they've used for generations.
On Wednesday evening, Mrs S & I noticed a variant of the Swift's call with which we weren't familiar. Instead of the usual joyous passing screams from above, we heard an odd, panic stricken call from below. A pair of Starlings had blocked a lone Swift's high speed path into it's nesting space beneath the roof tiles, forced it to the ground and were viciously pecking away at it. A downed Swift is as good as dead without speedy assistance, particularly when it's on the receiving end of such an attack, they spend virtually their whole lives in flight and have no means of becoming airborne from the ground. We ran down to the garden, scooped the shocked bird into a small box and took it to the highest point of the house, our bedroom, to release it. Holding it on an outstretched flat palm, we let it feel the breeze and sure enough, it soon took flight. What we didn't realise was that the Starlings were still waiting on the rooftop and immediately appeared from nowhere to forcibly bring the Swift crashing to earth again. Mrs S and I raced down the stairs and into the garden once more, to rescue our prone, plucky pal from the lethal beaks of the Starlings. This time we decided to wait awhile, to allow the starlings to disperse and let our battered Swift calm itself.
A little later, with the coast apparently clear, we once again climbed to the top floor to release the Swift. This time, it was understandably initially reluctant to take flight, though eventually swooped from Mrs S's outstretched hand and off around the house. To our absolute horror, the Starlings reappeared from out of the blue and were onto it like a shot. We once again heard that awful terrified scream as it was forced out of the sky and out of our view, somewhere further down the lane. We feared the worst. A grounded Swift stands little chance of survival, but this one had now been brought crashing to Earth on three separate occasions. We ran along the lane and miraculously spotted the Swift on the ground in a neighbour's front garden. Amazingly it was still alive, but had clearly endured enough for one day. We carefully placed it back in the cardboard box and took it home. It gratefully slurped some water offered from a pipette, then we left the shell-shocked little mite to chill-out, hoping it would make it through the night.
To our great relief, the Swift not only made it through the night, but looked quite perky when we carefully opened the lid of the box on Thursday morning. What we couldn't know of course, was if any serious damage had been caused either by the Starling attacks or the repeated collisions with the ground, not to mention the extreme stress involved in all these events. This time Mrs S & I resolved to release our beleaguered chum elsewhere, somewhere safer. The photo at the top of this blog was taken from our bedroom window, where we had unsuccessfully released the Swift on the previous two occasions. Squint and you'll be able to see the steeple of the church in town, across the marsh. Beneath that steeple is a large, lofty old graveyard, overlooking the marsh in our direction. We took the Swift to that quiet, bright and breezy location, held it aloft and within seconds it took flight. Looking none the worse for its multiple ordeals the previous evening, it circled us twice before climbing, up and away.
As I watched it soar, I considered the thousands of miles that little Swift had already travelled and, with a fair wind, the thousands more miles it might yet have left in its wings. And I don't mind telling you, my heart soared too.
'Ond Yn Dawel Daw y Dydd' (translates as 'But Quietly Comes a Day') is by Huw M. His beautiful music is my current obsession and I will definitely return to it in more detail soon.
The local sparrows have always pulled and pecked a
bit, but this year they've really been
munching away at Mrs S's beloved garden.
Leaves from the stems and petals from the
flowers, nothing, it seems, is safe from
their roaming beaks. They leave a trail of
devastation behind them, causing Mrs S a
whole bunch of grief. Perhaps their extra-curricular quaffing is a comment
on the quality of the actual bird food I put
out for them, though that always disappears
fairly sharpish too. To Mrs S's credit the garden still
looks fantastic, regardless.
Nom nom
All of this is a long-winded way of
introducing 'Garden', the latest track to be
lifted from C Duncan's imminent debut LP,
'Architect', following on from last year's
equally classy single, 'For', and 'Say' from
earlier in 2015. C Duncan hails from
Glasgow and I feel sure that one of my Scottish
based blogging chums must have flagged him at
some point over the past few months, though
as I've only lately come to fully realise
just how special his music is, I'm sure they
won't mind me spinning a couple of his tunes
again.
.jpg)
