Birds, birds, birds

Swallow, warbler, rail

Tiny Intersections

I saw my first swallow of the year today. I probably shouldn’t have, given that I was driving at the time, but I saw a flash of movement in my peripheral vision, and my brain – working, it’s estimated by scientists, at 765 quadrillion connections per nanosecond, a statistic that is both astounding and entirely made up – processed the image and shouted ‘SWALLOW!’

An instant later, I followed suit.

I mention it partly because the first swallow of the year is one of those seasonal markers that bring a little burst of energy – YES, COME ON, HERE WE GO – but also because it reminded me of the best accidental photo I will ever take. I took it last summer and here it is.

You may be wondering how to take such a photo. I will tell you.

– see swallows swooping

– take out phone

– set to ‘video’

– whirl around in a random frenzy, pointing phone camera in vague direction of swallows

– delete all footage not containing swallows (that’s nearly all of it)

– scroll through remaining footage until you find the single frame containing a complete swallow

– crop

– share to social media, accepting all praise re awesome photography skills as merely your due

The other highlight of the day’s walk took place by a reed bed. Strange places, reed beds. Peaceful in their own special way. A vast expanse of gentle swish in which nothing seems to happen. And then a Cetti’s warbler shouts at you.

CHACK! CHACK-A-DACK! CHACK-A-DACK-A-DIG-A-DOGGA-DACK!

You turn towards the source of the sound, watching for the merest sign of movement. For Cetti’s warblers – small and brown with few distinguishing features beyond their explosive song – are secretive creatures, and a glimpse is to be cherished.

You watch. You scan. You monitor. There is no Cetti’s warbler.

Just as you’re giving up, the bird strikes up again.

CHACK-A-DIGGA-DOGGA!

But here’s the thing. It has moved. Where before it was to your left, it is now to your right. And it has got there, apparently, with magic. That is the only possible explanation for the teleportation trick it’s just pulled. It couldn’t possibly have flown because you were watching and nothing moved, not even a reed.

There was a Cetti’s warbler today. Two, in fact. But, delightful as they were in their noisy invisibility, they weren’t the highlight. The highlight was equally invisible – such is the way of the reed bed – and the sound it made equally dramatic. A sound, so all the experts say, like a stuck pig.

Now, I don’t suppose I’m alone in thinking I know what kind of sound a stuck pig makes. Which is odd, because – and I’ve given it quite a bit of thought in the last couple of hours – I realise I’ve never been within listening distance of a stuck pig. Not once. Nor would I ever want to be. And yet, somewhere in the vast cloud of common cultural knowledge there lurks (presumably from a cartoon or a film or something) an aural image of said distressed animal. You might, I suspect, be the same.

But if you’re one of those people who doesn’t possess such an image, I can tell you what a stuck pig sounds like. It sounds like a water rail.

Which is my extraordinarily circuitous way of telling you that I heard a water rail in a reed bed, and it made my day.

It made my day because I don’t come across water rails very often, and their secretive nature makes each encounter one for the memory banks.

But it also made my day because it set me thinking about those secret lives, millions of them, only occasionally impinging on our consciousness. The water rail, squealing in the reed bed; the swallow, just in from Africa, swooping overhead; the Cetti’s warbler, shouting at me for reasons unknown. A few seconds each way and our paths wouldn’t have crossed. Well, perhaps a minute in the case of the Cetti’s warbler – they really are quite shouty, and their voices far-carrying.

The birds, of course, have got much more important things to worry about. Food, survival, procreation, that kind of thing. They couldn’t care less that these tiny moments of intersection give me pleasure. But, selfishly, I care a lot.

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Crests

A couple of weeks ago I shared with you this video of a firecrest and a goldcrest facing off in Crystal Palace Park.

This week, those nice folk at The Guardian let me write about it.

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What Bird Is That?

Artist, birder and all-round good egg Will Rose has started a YouTube channel called ‘What Bird Is That’. It’s great and fun and excellent for getting children enthused about birds. The first episode is here.

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Three stories (none of them, I’m afraid, by me, but all, to my mind, really interesting) follow below the fold.