Magpie

Strutting about the garden  in the rain with his swaggering gait, a bandit, a reiver, a robber.

Predator, egg thief, hunter of the weak and vulnerable, snapper up of any unconsidered trifle.

A magpie.

Bird of ill omen; bringer of bad luck; portent of doom; one for sorrow.

Yet, beautiful. Not gaudy but stylish. Classic black and white with that brilliant azure wing edging and the long elegant tail glossed with purple and green.

A deadly beauty like an F16 jet fighter or a chased steel rapier, a beauty that kills.

Unafraid, he strolled about the lawn with his cocky, jerky walk and searching eye while the sparrows scolded from the safety of the hawthorn hedge.

Finding nothing of note, he departed.

Jessie Lamont, the poet born in our village, was inspired by the bird.

Magpie

How I love you, magpie,

As you swiftly fly

From yew to willow tree!

On a stormy sea

Grey gulls may enthral,

But you are magical.

Bird, whom none befriends,

Bird, whose light transcends

Dark images of wrong,

To Beauty you belong!

I too, enjoyed my encounter but just to be safe, I tugged my forelock and asked after his family. No point in taking chances!

A Winter's Tale

Stormy sky

The polar vortex stopped spinning or split or slowed down or misbehaved in some way or another and released the “beast from the east” as the press have been calling it.  A freezing northeaster bringing blizzards and snow storms straight from the steppes of Siberia causing chaos and disruption to our shores.   In the garden, the hellebores had progressed from the Christmas rose to its Lenten equivalent and the snowdrops and aconites beneath the hedges were being followed by crocuses, yellow then white and purple, when all were buried under a white blanket drifting in the icy wind.

The community spirit of the village prevailed and the housebound and old got support.  One cheeky character actually stopped to offer me a lift as I made my way back from the local shops.

 “Got to make sure the elderly are okay,” he grinned through the rolled down car window.

Feeding the birds has been even more necessary than usual but the extra effort has had its own rewards.

The sight of four different members of the thrush family in the garden at the same time was a bonus.   Redwing, fieldfare, song thrush and blackbird all feeding on our offerings.

From the top - Fieldfare, Redwing and Song Thrush

 

The blackie, as usual, couldn’t curb his aggressive behaviour but even he settled down to let the rest join in along with the tits, sparrows and robins.

Typically aggressive blackbird

  Imagine flying all the way from Scandinavia to avoid the snow and landing in the worst weather of the winter. I happily raked the snow off the windfall apples still under the trees for them.

The long tailed tits have been back on the peanuts. They don’t seem to bother with the other food and always arrive mob-handed for few minutes of frantic feeding then vanish.  Do they have a round of peanut feeders to visit?

Long-tailed tits, two of the gang

 I even found a tiny goldcrest feeding among some of the aubretia that grows on many of the old walls, presumably searching for hibernating insects. I‘ve never seen one actually in the village before though they are in the surrounding woods.  Is it a good sign that they are coming closer in or is it just the stormy weather?  We shall see.

  Regarding tiny birds, the wrens have been flocking together and roosting in the cracks in the bark of the big gean tree though they don’t come to the feeders. Presumably they, like the goldcrest, find insects among the undergrowth and tree roots.  True troglodytes.

The old rhyme was right.

If Candlemas be clear and bright

Winter will have another bite

 Candlemas on February 2^nd, was indeed a great day and everyone was out walking and remarking how mild the weather had been. Little did we guess what Mother Nature had in store!