A PASTORAL

Let’s have a little poem to celebrate the great outdoors. Sadly, the number of thrushes seem to be declining fast in Kent, though I came across a thrush’s anvil yesterday; there was one in our garden, many years ago. If you never saw it, you won’t know you’ve lost it. A thrush’s anvil is the stone s/he uses to bash snails against until the flesh can be extracted. This one was on gravel, so the shells hardly showed against the pebbles, of a similar shape, size and colour to the shells, so I brought two smashed shells home. I hope the thrushes’ chicks prosper and restore their fortunes in Kent.

The poem was probably written in Florence, where Walter Savage Landor had gone after quarrelling with most of his friends and enemies in England. Robert Browning took him under his wing.

Damon was sitting in the grove
With Phyllis, and protesting love;
And she was listening; but no word
Of all he loudly swore she heard.
How! was she deaf then? no, not she,
Phyllis was quite the contrary.
Tapping his elbow, she said, ‘Hush!
O what a darling of a thrush!
I think he never sang so well
As now, below us, in the dell.’

Imaginary Conversations and Poems, A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor via Kindle

I’m reminded of George’s primary school teacher, who complained that at the end of a difficult lesson when she had been introducing a new maths topic, she saw him looking out of the window. ‘There’s a female blackbird on the grass, Miss.’

When he got home, he said that he had stopped paying attention once he understood the maths, and got on with birdwatching.

SPRING QUIET by Christina Rossetti

Mile End Cemetery

Christina Rossetti lived mostly in London, when this cemetery was still in active use; it is about 5km from the centre of town. Nowadays the thorn bushes are white, the birds sing, the sun shines shadily, and people can wander around, hearing the sea in the swaying branches. And there are tower blocks in Kentish seaside towns as well as central London suburbs!

Gone were but the Winter,
Come were but the Spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;

 Where in the white-thorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.

 Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs,
Arching high over
A cool green house:

 Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
"We spread no snare;

 "Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.

 "Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be."

Winter wings

It was under a darkling, grey sky that I followed Mrs T to the boundary of the field, through the kissing gate and down the steps through the hedge to the metalled road. I was far enough behind to see what she did not: the half-dozen redwings that she startled. They were startled again when they almost flew into me, but wheeled away to find another sheltered roost a little further up the lane.

These winter visitors enjoy the winter berries, holly, hawthorn, rowan, awaiting their attention in hedge and scrub, town and country. I am always glad to see them; it’s not really winter without them.

photograph by Andreas Trepte

Midday Busker

The great bell of the Cathedral was chiming the hour, but that was not the sound that caught Abel’s attention. It was a blackcap perched on a fence about eye-level to both of us – Abel was lifted up on the bike seat so could see clearly. And hear and ask, what’s that bird?

When the little bird had ceased warbling, we looked up in the trees around the theatre and Dominican and spotted a pair of wood pigeons. We had been talking about them a few minutes before, when we saw a few town pigeons foraging outside a café.

There’s no need to be 3½ years old to marvel at the blackcap or the robin, blackbird or thrush’s song. Listen out, and be grateful!

Ron Knight via Wiki Commons

Butterflies in Winter.

The village school’s reception class is called the Butterflies, and they brought a hint of Spring to a winter’s day at the L’Arche garden. The four and five year olds came to learn and exercise a few gardening skills, to meet some of the community and enjoy the winter sunshine.

Of course, the sun shines as brightly in the village as in the city. And it’s generally quieter there, unless a tractor or chain saw is on the go. The inner ring road runs roaring past the garden so it’s never really quiet. But we, sometimes grudgingly, ignore it and so did the children, though one boy noticed the trains accelerating from the station, something he would not hear at school.

Everyone noticed the sirens as the two fire engines raced past. Drama that does not happen in the village! I looked up from my planting to see three of the girls, arms linked, dancing in a circle, chanting nee-naw, nee-naw, taking pleasure from the sounds, taking pleasure from being alive on a sunny winter’s day in the youth of the world.

And my mind’s ear remembered the blackbird who lifted a telephone warble into his song, and the thrushes and starlings who also make music of our human racket, even getting me halfway down the garden path to answer a starling’s phone call, and I thought, why not? Why not dance when the world is young, and your friends are around you, and you have a day off from routine, and so much to be grateful for? Words are not always enough.

Picture from FMSL

1 January: Singing in the New Year.

It was a great pleasure that the first bird I heard this year was a song thrush from a bush in a neighbour’s garden, closely followed by blackbird, starlings, pigeons, jackdaws … suburban Canterbury on wings.

I gave greater pleasure to Mrs Turnstone when she heard that in the course of tidying the woodstore, separating the kindling from the logs that had been hastily laid on top of them, I had seen a woodmouse scurrying to safety. She had not liked laying down poison for the rats that had infested the other end of the garden, fearing for the colony of mice that has been here longer than the family Turnstone. This year’s Mrs Tittlemouse is made of stern stuff.

A grace note to the story: the kindling was 18 month old apricot. Clattering the sticks together released the scent of the fruit, just as the leaves did. See ‘Two unexpected autumn gifts’, November 24th 2018.

After the rain

2.00 p.m.: it was the summer storm we’d been waiting for, though not predicted by this morning’s weather forecast. A good 25mm, 1” of drain-blocking rain in an hour. Before I tackled that little job (and I would have waited for Abel, had I known he was almost on the doorstep) I looked out of the back door.

The rain had ceased. Movement in the apricot tree: a song thrush decided it was time to dry herself off. An all over shake; spreading first the left wing, then the right, preening each with her bill; fanning the tail and giving that a good shake, followed by a dance move no human could copy: head thrust forward and down, feathers all fluffed, then three or four undulations from head to tail. That did the job! Satisfied, she preened herself once more and flew away.

I’ve seen few thrushes in our garden over the past few years. It was an extra pleasure to witness this intimate moment in her life.

bbc.video of thrush

 

No time to stop and stare?

I’d guess that WH Davies had a reason for calling his most familiar poem ‘Leisure’. Although it has been holiday time the days and evenings have been full, yet there have been moments, every day, to stop and stare: yesterday to marvel at a thrush singing each song twice over, and to hear how he had orchestrated a vehicle reversing alarm and a common telephone ring into his song. That fulfilled this verse:

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

And coming down Abbot’s Hill the other day, I saw a squirrel digging for nuts, which recalls:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

Bring Spring on! Here’s the poem:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Soon ragged robin will be in flower. Magdalene, Cambridge.

 

 

Robin on Christmas afternoon.

After a big Christmas meal among a crowd of adults, some of them unknown to him, 18 month-old Abel was getting restless so he went to the back door and found his wellington boots. It was time for some fresh air.

By the corner of the park he stopped. He pointed at the lilac tree and shook his finger – a gesture he uses if he hears a loud noise like a siren – or grandad sneezing. Grandad’s sinuses were not challenged on this occasion; the noise was coming from the tree: Robin playing his part in the dusk chorus.

Abel watched and listened till Robin changed his perch, then said, bye bye. Off he went into the park and straight up onto the old abandoned railway line. At the top he paused again, listening. Singing close by were a thrush and blackbird as well as another robin. After listening for a while, it was bye-bye to these birds too. We were unable to see them.

We did see the gulls flying below the clouds on their way to the coast: bye-bye to them too.

It was dark when we said bye-bye to Abel, but he pointed from his car-seat to our own robin, still singing, still patrolling his boundaries by street-light. Bye-bye Abel, thank you for listening with me!

Caught again!

He still makes me look to the back door of the house if I am in the garden: the next cock blackbird up the street, with his imitation of a telephone ring – the same one that we have indoors. As well for my sanity that he is not a song thrush, singing each song twice over! I heard the same notes again this afternoon, from a blackbird near Mrs O’s garden; far enough away not to be the same bird. It’s usually starlings that work mimicry into their songs – or so I thought.

Back in our garden, three of us have seen Mrs Tittlemouse this week, even if Mrs Turnstone was just in time to see a tail whisk behind a brick, she did see her mascot. Smiles all round.