Birds don’t live for ever

Since 2018 we have kept doves, but it took until the 2020 lockdowns for them to become part of the rhythm of our days with Nigel feeding them by hand and talking to them as they snaffled their dried peas and corn.

Being completely white, doves are difficult to distinguish from one another.  However, this anonymity has surely saved us some heartbreak. Doves are vulnerable to predators - their pale plumage makes them an easy target for our local sparrowhawks and peregrines and cats. Yet when we see feathers scattered on the ground (carnivore confetti) it is often hard to tell exactly which dove had been taken. 

One bird, however, has been our particular favourite - an excellent mother she has raised many chicks in our dovecote.  Over the years she has had two long-term partners with whom she has billed and cooed.  We could tell her from the others by a black feather below her eye, giving her the name Tear.  Every so often, Tear would vanish for a few days to incubate eggs, but now, for several weeks, she has not reappeared.

Similarly, it was during the Covid lockdowns that Nigel encouraged our garden robin to feed from his hand, and soon mine too.  The robin was always particularly friendly when feeding chicks.  He would look about him cautiously then swoop towards me.  Fluttering in midair, onto my fingers he would place his feet, looking as if they had been drawn with a sharp pencil. Swiftly he would tilt to peck a strand of suet from my palm, then make off with his haul to his nest in the bushes.

This year, he had raised one brood of round speckled robin chicks and was on his second.  As the nesting season wore on, he looked increasingly tired and shabby, and now he too has disappeared.

In both cases, we’ll never know for certain how they met their end, and there is a kindness in that.  It is good to remember both Tear and Robin as we last saw them, waiting on the patio for us to come out and bring them food.  To catch our attention Tear would peck at the window and Robin would tweet loudly. 

And now I think about it, perhaps it was they who had trained us, rather than the other way about.

A Camp and Windy Weekend

I love camping.  It is an utter idyll to sit by a firepit with a glass of wine and good company.  You don’t have to go out because you are already out and in prime position to watch the sunset, hear the dusk chorus, spot the bats flitter past and catch sight of the first star.

Last summer Perran and I camped near Avebury.  This July, Carenza and I were to stay at the excellent Woodfire Camping site at Westlands, East Sussex. 

We planned walks on the South Downs Way and Serpent Trail and sightseeing at Petworth House.  However, most unfortunately, we forgot to book good weather.

The forecast said fair on Friday night, downpour Saturday. 

‘We have to pack all my favourite bits of camping into Friday night,’ I said. 

So we ate looking out over acres of woodland, I painted a watercolour and Carenza read. As night fell, we lit the firepit, opened a bottle of wine and switched on my bat detector (pipistrelles were passing).  Even the air stayed in our airbeds and we were woken early by a family of noisy woodpeckers. (Outside the tent, not in it.)

We also had a solid plan for the rainy Saturday evening.

1)      Go to pub

2)      Stay in pub

3)      Return to tent at bedtime

BUT I had not paid sufficient attention to the forecast – not only was there to be rain.  A MIGHTY WIND was on its way.

The blasts bent the tent poles double and forced rain in through the seams.  I could not see Carenza in the dark, but I imagined her lying like me with eyes wide open, listening to the buffeting of the storm and wishing we’d checked the guy ropes before turning in…  Every time I fell asleep, the side of the tent blew in and slapped me awake. 

In the morning our tent was still standing, but we couldn’t help noticing not all the other tents were where they had been the night before. Some gazebos were missing altogether.

At the time, we enjoyed the first night way more, but it is the second night we will still be enjoying years from now as we continue to recount the tale of the scary gale.