Onomatopoeia

On a recent walk through some local woods, I was aware of how all of us including some very experienced bird watchers relied on our ears before our eyes to identify the denizens of the trees.

The distinctive and surprisingly loud, pew pew pew of the nuthatch alerted us all long before it was spotted as did the repetitive tsee tsee tsee of the siskins.

Everyone knows the yellow-hammer's refrain of "a little bit of bread and no chee-eese" and, to my mind, the chaffinch sounds like a fast bowler approaching the crease - a few stuttering notes, then an accelerating run then a flourish of cheewoo on the delivery.

I downloaded an app on my i-pod which allows me to record a song for 30 seconds then have it analysed and identified. It has its limitations; it failed a trial of naming a buzzard from its unmistakable call but is usually pretty accurate.

I've just finished the Diaries of a Dying Man, the last work of the poet William Soutar.  His ankylosing spondylitis eventually made him bedridden for fourteen years from 1930 until his death in 1943.   His contact with the natural world was confined to his garden, mostly viewed through a bay window but his enforced immobility allowed him to become a wonderful recorder of the passing scene.

 He had a great affinity for the blackbird.  He compared it to the thrush whom he saw as a provincial country cousin compared to the masterful creation of the blackbird with its " solitary bright bill against the body's darkness"

...life's joy culminated in a single gesture- the flirt of a tail feather; and the magnanimity of life flowing in the rich simplicity of a song.

 Another entry has a blackbird whistling in the rain " the Caruso of the tribe"

I could have listened to him for hours, the interplay of notes was so varied, defiant, witty, confident, merry, bold - anything but melancholy.

This from a man with a poet's ear for sound in rhythm and rhyme.

He attempted, but admitted it was well nigh impossible, to translate the song into words.

chickee-chickee-chee: ti-ti-ti-titty-titty: chittie-cheea: tweeto-tweet-tweeto: what-ya-doin', what-ya-doin': hullo-hullo-hullo: chejoey-chejoey-what-what-what: gee-up, gee-up, hoo-hoo-hoo: get-away, get-away, get-away: you-would, you-would, you-would, would-you?: hoi-hoi-hoi-- have-a-look-at -me.

The sheer volume and exuberance of the blackbird's song make it difficult for the amateur bird watcher to distinguish the others joining in the chorus though the robin and humble dunnock try their best.  Thankfully, the wonderfully ascending scales of the sky lark only have the wind to outdo. 

The comforting cooing of the wood pigeon; the privilege of hearing the barn owl's screech or the tawny owl's hoot in the stillness of the night; the assurance of summer in the cuckoo's mocking call or the scream of the swifts on warm evenings: sometimes we are scarcely aware of them amongst all the noise we generate.

 We should rejoice in their presence.

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!

A field of battle

Coming north from a family party, we left the motorway and happened on a small village called Clifton.

A sign informed us it was the site of the last battle on English soil.

The retreating Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was being pursued by the Hanoverian forces of the Duke of Cumberland and General Wade.

The house where the Duke of Cumberland is said to have stayed

A rear-guard action was fought by the Macdonells of Glengarry, the Clan Macpherson and the Stewarts of Appin, stopping the Government forces and allowing the main Jacobite host to escape.

This only delayed the inevitable as they were subsequently routed at Culloden in 1746 with the subsequent destruction of the Highland clan system in the aftermath.

Sir Walter Scott describes the battle in the novel Waverley when the eponymous hero, Edward Waverley, an Englishman, is involved in the Jacobite cause.

Waverley is pardoned for his part in the uprising but when Euan MacIvor the father of his love, the passionate Flora, is executed, she rejects Waverley. Edward later marries the sensible  Rose Bradwardine. 

Perhaps Scott was showing the  choice between the romance of the doomed Stuart cause and the stability of the Hanoverian regime.

In the novel, Scott draws upon the words of clan chief, Macpherson of Cluny in  his notes of the battle with its evocative description and the ring of the clan names and battle cries.

'The Stewarts and Macphersons marched forward at the word of command, as did the Macdonalds and MacDonnells on the right. The men on the on the right kept firing as they advanced but the Macphersons, who were on the left, soon came into contact with the English dragoons, and received the whole of their fire. Murray then drawing his sword, he cried out, "Claymore!", and, Cluny Macpherson doing the same, the Macphersons rushed down to the bottom ditch of the enclosure, and, clearing the hedges as they went, fell sword in hand upon the enemy, of whom a  number were killed at the lower ditch. The rest retreated across the moor, but received in their flight the fire of the MacDonnell of Glengarry regiment'.

Ten Government dragoons were killed and four of their officers wounded. One British dragoon is recorded as dying in Clifton several weeks later, presumably of wounds received in the battle. The dragoons killed in the battle are buried in St Cuthbert's churchyard. Near the churchyard gate is a stone commemorating the skirmish.

 Nearby is a tree said to be at the the site of the Jacobite graves.

The only prisoner taken on the occasion was a footman of the Duke of Cumberland. This man was later sent back to his master by Charles Edward Stuart.

Motorways are great for getting from one place to another but deny us these chances for an unplanned dip into the past.

The Battle of Clifton though it was little more than a skirmish, took place two hundred and seventy two years ago tomorrow, the 29th December by the Gregorian calendar. At the time of the battle the Julian calendar was still in use so the date was recorded as December 18th, eleven days earlier. 

There would still have been time to get home to Scotland for Hogmanay though with little reason to celebrate.