I am surprisingly entranced by the wood pigeons courting. They stand side by side on the garden wall, bobbing and turning, an occasional side-step towards each other or away, like some Regency period dance. He makes a move. She takes fright and flight. There's a mid-air scuffle, kerfuffle, that is really a polite, coquettish, "how dare you, Sir?"
They alight back on the wall. He bobs an apology, and the dance begins again.
And repeat.
Eventually, he gets the message and flies down to the lawn where he struts his frustration, all ruffled feathers and macho-shoulders.
Seemingly regretting pushing it too far, she bows deep, head down and forward, tail raised in a clear invitation. If he sees the display, he ignores it. Instead he ostentatiously investigates the flower bed for food.
She calls and is ignored. Another bird flies in, enticing a mild interest. Oh! That's different. A rival?! Our original male (I am making assumptions here, I have no idea how you sex a pigeon across the distance of a garden) flits up to the roof of a bird table, from where he can keep a better watch on proceedings. Not much happens on the wall. Eventually the (supposed) female flies away and my (equally supposed) male returns to the flower bed, this time in an earnest search for sustenance.
~ / ~
All the while a pair of thrushes companionably walk around the lawn, nibbling titbits that they find, like some old married couple seeking free snacks at a farmers' market, tasting samples with no intention of buying.
~ / ~
On a sunny morning a blue tit visits my balcony, checks the table for scraps, then hangs upside down on the mesh fencing to see if the stones below might be more fruitful.
Next day, I'm visited by a robin. Unlike the tit, he perches confidently on the balcony top rail. His entire body quivers with song. When he flies away, the melody is the last of him to diminish and doesn't really leave. I hear him from the topmost branches of the trees beyond the wall.
~ / ~
On the moor a grouse panics at my passing and runs away, kerrecching his alarm. While high above a lark trills skywards, and somewhere far away, despite a scarcity of trees I hear woodpecker hammering.
~ / ~
In Ilkley, I walk down to the River Wharfe via the memorial gardens, and amble along the bank. Just as I'm thinking how tame and lifeless the river seems at this point, with nothing more than a lonely pair of mallard to its name, I spot it: that unmistakeable flash of cobalt blue.
Barely clearing the surface, the Kingfisher skims upstream. I wonder how the river looks through Kingfisher's eyes. He can't be fishing, not at that speed. I've watched them perch in the shadows, scanning below the surface, and lightning-dive to capture unsuspecting prey. What then, is this skimming, up-stream flight about? Is it, perhaps, a reconnaissance mission, spying out the latest lay of the river bed for likely fishing spots? Shales and shallows move with every flood and the hunter must keep refreshing the map, identifying where rich pickings might be had.
Does it scout out bankside properties as it goes, looking for likely nesting holes?
Or perhaps I've got it all completely wrong, and this gorgeous bird is joy-riding – just stretching his wings, exercising, enjoying the weather. Or maybe he's displaying for the ladies. It is the beginning of spring, after all.
~ / ~
Hunkered down on the wrong kind of shingle bank, a black-headed gull looks ever so slightly lost. These river ripples aren't the waves of sea on shore.
Upstream, a shag launches from the shallows and his slow wing beats cast dark shadows following the flow.
~ / ~
So here's the important thing about not being a proper bird-watcher: it didn't matter how rare or common the birds, it doesn't matter what the birds were really thinking, really doing, or whether they were male or female, or – who knows?– somewhere between the two. Who says it's only humans who choose to self-identify as other than what the rest of the world would have them be?
Not caring how right or wrong I was about who they are and what they were up to, I got to make up stories, I got to wonder about what ifs and maybes, above all I got to just take pleasure in sharing a little space with them – their space rather than mine to be fair. In a world where humans cannot figure out themselves, and cause so much damage in their mis-figuring it out, I find solace in going somewhere different from my normal patch and just looking about.
And making up fanciful tales, gentle ones, to fill in the gaps. I recommend it as a practice. Go out into nature – doesn't need to be the wilderness – anywhere a little bit unkempt will do – and look and listen. Try to catch one thing to take home in memoryand look up – learn a name, or a behaviour, or a landscape, or a rock, just one little thing for today. And for the rest…make up your own songs and stories. Nature will welcome you in, and will want you to smile.
