Sunday 20 January 2013

Off with the Birds


It wasn't till my forties that I began to notice, I mean properly notice the birds in my garden. It had always been nice to see and hear them but I never had what I can best describe as "relationship" with them.

Its very simple; you feed them and like twitter they follow you. What I have noticed is that it quickly becomes part of your routine, you begin to care about them. Their needs are so simple. In time you get regular individuals appearing and this is an account of my having what I think is a remarkable relationship with my blackbirds.

The point of my blog is to suggest that both you and and the person you care for might find this a rewarding pursuit. I think it's another tool in the tool kit regards loneliness and also with conditions like dementia as its "real time" pleasure, it also gives you both things to talk about as they happen.

It must be about 8 years ago when I came back from a days fishing and still had some bait left, sorry for the squeamish reader but they were maggots. As I off loaded my fishing gear I left them on the window sill, and forgot about them. When I remembered the following morning and looked at least half of them disappeared.

So I put the open bait box on the ground and placed a small video camera by it, set it to record and went in doors. Within a few minutes a head popped out of the honeysuckle bush, then in that cute way she cocked her head sideways to study the bait box, and 20 seconds later she was tucking in.

The bush she had emerged from was to the left of my front door and you almost brushed past it as you left or entered the house, at just over 5 feet in height there was a gap in the foliage with 3 blue eggs sitting in a perfectly constructed nest.

I went to the pet shop and got some meal worms, and over the following days I would chuck a few on the path and whistle, always the same tune. It only took a few days for her to cotton on to the routine. I would whistle and where ever she was, over the road, in the park, or on the nest, she would come.

Blackbirds are very territorial but she did allow one other, a male to come into the garden, I soon realised this was Dad and within few more days he would also come to my call. At the same time a robin got in on the act and was initially much bolder than the pair of blackbirds.

Then we had babies:).  I could stand 18 inches from the nest and look at three gaping yellow mouths and mum was never put off by this. I could tell Dad apart from the male blackbirds because he had an odd grey feather (which is rather like the tip of a black cat tail being white), it was a little genetic trait, not age.

This presented a new challenge, mum and dad were feeding 3 insatiable kids, so when I put worms down they would cram as many of them in their beaks as possible. The challenge was to put the right amount of worms down, it's in their instinct to hoover up all feeding opportunities, they are the Labrador of the bird world:). This drive would mean that once they had about 8 to 10 worms in their beak each time they tried to pick up another one, one or two would escape. It was painful to watch, and also very funny but would take far too long so 8 at a time was the best way to get the grub into the babies fast to give them a head start.

It was an extremely hot summer and they were nesting on a south facing wall, so on a couple of the worse days 30C plus I will admit to putting a fan out by the bush to keep the chicks cool. It wasn't long before they fledged and were following mum or dad for food and shouting for more, so they very quickly got used to me and were perfectly happy to come within a foot of my shoes and feed.

It was around then that I began to notice the male copying my whistle in his song, and over time he would use that as a way to call me when he wanted food in the morning. The drawback was he would sit in the tree opposite the bedroom and sing his socks off at 4 am. But in the evening his mellifluous song from the chimney to was just a delight. 

I came home one lunchtime and saw Mrs blackbird spreadeagled on my doormat, she looked injured.....  She was sunbathing and so were the kids. I had never seen them do that but was chuffed they felt so safe in my front garden that they could do that.

As time went on I saw we had two females and one male, and he had the same flash of a grey feather on his side. Over that summer I used to open the front door just to get some air movement and coming down the stairs I saw mum had come inside, clearly looking for a snack. One one occasion she found her way in to the front room. No panic when I arrived I just opened the window, made sure she saw me put some food on the sill and when she was ready she left. 

I saw her and her family through the winter and one of things I had noticed is they would seem my car arrive and fly over to meet me, they 100% recognise cars, and people. If other people went to the front door they would ignore them, as soon I turned up however they would fly down to greet me and demand meal worms. It got to the point where I had to step over them :) they also befriended our post man. If I was taking my dog out they would quite happily stand underneath her, completely unphased.

Black birds don't live for ever anyway, and they had a dangerous habit of flying from the park across the road to the house just a few feet off the ground which always worried me if I called them.

I came home one day to find Mrs blackbird very injured but alive a few doors up. I couldn't bring myself to do anything, so had to walk away and remind myself that nature is nature and in this case there was nothing I could do. Some how she made it to my garden and I found her dead at my gate, so poignant. I still well up now:)

As we both need cheering up here is the amazing thing: each year blackbirds would appear, quite fearless of me and feed. I changed my car and in a few weeks they soon could spot me 50 yards from the house and beat me to the gate.

I can only think I have somehow been imprinted onto the memory of this and other generations of the family because 6 years on and despite not having fed them for 6 months as I moved out recently, last week I called and a female appeared making the soft chupping noises, and came within a few feet of me. I went to the pet shop got a few worms went back and called her and she came and fed, like it had always been that way. 

For several years I could hear blackbirds in and around the park whistling the unmistakable tune I whistled,  as the family spread out in to the surrounding areas and set up new ones of their own.

I have had so much joy out of quietly and slowly building a relationship with my birds, and with all the snow this is a great time to not only look after them but also to get to know them, they never forget where they get food from so many of the birds you feed today will be with you all years....and perhaps longer.

It's out there, you just have to notice it, and through all sorts of bad times my birds always gave me pleasure, in the moment, and then as now put a smile on my face.

UPDATE

Its now 2016 and hard as it might be to believe but 7 years after moving out the new generations of blackbirds still fly over to greet me when I visit my ex. For me this proves beyond all reasonable doubt that their trust of me is genetic, it hard wired because these are individuals I have not fed on a daily basis for years.

Jon


































    

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