a sixth reflection...'a lesson in birdsong'

Since I came out the other evening about my passion for birds, I have noticed people observing me in a different way, almost as if one-step (further?) removed, through binoculars.  They squint and peer, trying to detect what on earth is going on with me, and where on earth such a strange inclination could possibly have arisen from; oh if I could tell! 

..so I will.

You see when discussing my passion for birds, I must begin by saying I don’t mean the dolled-up, flightless variety you find fluttering loaded eyelashes across dance floors in empty city bars (though some of them can be very nice, thank you), I mean the swallow on the telegraph pole, the nuthatch in the May grass, the cuckoo somewhere at the bottom of a Spring garden.

Whereas I used to lie awake, Sunday morning, hearing nothing but my partner’s drunken snores, and dim echoes of the night before; now I delight in the dawn chorus - my heart leaps and my head clears (although my partner still snores through all of this).

I swear it is a religious experience, for the Jesus-people church bells on a wedding day must be the same as birdsong on a Sunday morning: brite, gay, heralding the start of new-life.

These delicate little creatures make such a joyous noise!  All except crows, of course, with their tedious rasping, but never mind, crows are at least quite something to behold. 

Have you ever been outside in open land on a heavy, humid day, when the sky is purple and thunder is in the air?  You can sense the electricity crackle in the brooding clouds above - look up and the crows will be circling, black as doom: you're in love.

Anyhow..

From my bedroom I am fortunate enough to have a view of the municipal park.  There are several tall plane trees bordering the road that runs around the park, and in summer the parakeets flock to them, sit chattering in the branches, and Saturdays, I like to listen - good thoughts come.

Indeed, the sum of my passion for birds is understanding the art of happily going nowhere fast in accepting the present, future and past.  In their movements birds are like humans: they sit and then flit, flit and then sit, however, when they sit, they seem to do so with a lightness of being far beyond many of us for the laws of physics, and the inexorable toll of gravity, do not apply, not to mention the man-made construct of time.

Lying in bed, listening to the birdsong, makes me wonder how we’ve conspired to make life so hard for ourselves, and how we can lift one another from our earthbound existence, pigs in swill.

Let's start by lending an ear, and being still.