Thursday 3 July 2014

A Blackbird Vignette from Newark


As I went out my front door this morning, prepatory for heading for work at 6am, I had another of the lovely little widlife vignettes I so enjoy.

An adult blackbird had brought back an enormous lump of bread for a very grown up fledgling on my driveway, so grown up its gape had faded and it was practically larger than its parent. However, the bread was far too big for even the greediest of chicks, so after an initial attempt at feeding bounced off the fledglings head, the ungrateful child peeped insistently at the adult until it tried again, with exactly the same result.

I was reminded of the “And that's how I acquired my drinking problem” scenes from the Airplane movies.

Eventually, after a few avian accidental headbutts the bread had reached edible size, and the fledgling was duly fed, with that same insistent peeping in between each mouthful. Early evening at home, there were three fledglings sat on my back wall; I pity the parents of this demanding little brood.

I love such moments; unremarkable, un-noteworthy perhaps, but a cheerful sign of life going on around you as the prospect of a grim roadwork hassled cycle to work looms over your helmeted head. When I arrive, there's often a singing linnet sat on the fence at my grim industrial workplace, but that's another vignette I may have written about before, and may do again.

Copyright creamcrackerednature  03/07/14

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