On the shortest day the dawn chorus filled my bedroom and for a moment I thought I was lying on a mossy woodland floor looking up at the bud-thick branches of oaks against a spring-blue sky, but it was only my CD alarm clock, set to wake me slowly and easily at 7.30am. I stretched and smiled thinking; from now on, little by little, the days will get longer.
Clutching lemon tea, I watched the birds on the feeder –
mostly blue tits and sparrows, swinging and clinging and swapping places like
an acrobat troupe, I could almost hear circus music. And then, in a flurry of pink, a puff of
long-tailed tits appeared. With
slight-of-wing, they landed, lifted off, landed, criss-crossed each other and
seemed to alight on each branch of the old cherry tree for seconds. Then suddenly,
they were gone. Fleeting, exciting,
breathtaking – a bit like life.
A plump female blackbird maintained her dignity as she
balanced on a thin branch of the new crab apple tree, leaned across and plucked
a tiny yellow fruit. She brought it to
the patio and chased it over the paving slabs before stabbing it with her knife-thrower's beak. Later I found the empty
skin glowing like a tiny sun amongst the dark and slimy leaves.
A ringmaster dunnock strutted around the base of the tree, piping in the
next act. I glanced around to see who
would enter and spotted a nuthatch in its steely-blue cape, mousing down the
tree trunk before it completely disappeared –no drum roll, no smoke, no
mirrors.
Ambling around the garden I found some early Christmas
gifts...
