VIRUS-TIME SHORT TALKS No. 8: The Birds

No. 8 The Birds 

The daughter got us a book one Christmas – Ireland’s Garden Birds – and it's come into its own, in lockdown time. I still can’t tell my finches from my tits or my wagtails from my wrens. Except that wagtails are bigger. The wee wren is nothing more than a mouth, a feathery voice-box, wherein the call is bigger than the bird. (sfx – wren).

The gardens in our estate back onto each other and there's plenty of space to fly in. The planes at the airport recognise this. They fly over any time they’re working. Generally, our estate’s fly-zone is strictly for the birds, birds I can name and many more I can't. 

There was even a kestrel here a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, it’s quite religious. It’s said to nest in the nearby Cathedral. This one came in over the Fire Station, hovered ominously, then dive-bombed a wee mouse, which it had for lunch. (sfx – kestrel) 

I was reminded of Barry Hines’ great book, Kestrel for a Knave and Ken Loach’s brilliant film Kes, about a wee boy training a kestrel. The kestrel out our back didn’t look like it wanted to be trained. 

All the other birds, especially the wee ones, made themselves scarce when Kes was about. I had the daughter’s book open, looking up kestrels, when they started to return. 

A tiny ball of fluff with a pert sticky-up tail landed and I guessed it was a wren. Yep, there it is, in full colour, on page 92 in the book, cocking and twerking it’s tail, while it sings. 

There’s a pair of robins, of course. They nest behind the broken vent-cover on next door’s wall. They’ve been flat out nest-building and then feeding their young. It struck me that they know little and care less about my lockdown ramblings.

Magpies get a bad press. I know the rhyme ‘one for sorrow’, but I like magpies. Apparently magpies can remember human faces and make friends with people. In fact, some of my closest friends are magpies. (sfx – magpie). 

Birds don’t make friends with cats, who stalk them like tigers. So, a warning to all my tweet-tweet friends, including magpies, remember what they used to say in Hills Street Blues, hey, be careful out there.

But my BFF, my best feathered friend, is the blackbird. (sfx – blackbird).

Francis Ledwidge, the poet-soldier on leave in Ebrington Barracks in 1916, wrote about blackbirds and people, silenced by war

But in the lonely hush of eve

Weeping I grieve the silent bills.’

I heard the Poor Old Woman say

In Derry of the little hills.’

But still, the blackbird sings up and down our street. I’m glad there’s no silent bills, but plenty of bird song. (sfx – lark) Is that a lark, in the clear air? (sfx – tune: lark in the clear air- violin)

Broadcast on BBC Foyle, The Breakfast Show, 25.5.2020 

Available on BBC Sounds. From 1 55 00

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jfv6