Walking with a wild bird
Feb 9th, 2008 by Birdy Trish
Walking on the path I saw a small bird hopping about in the early morning gloom.
Early morning, when the night is entwined with the day, is a strange time. A time when the wild world is with us and nature is part of us.
I didn’t know then that this moment was going to stay with me.
I was walking towards this bird when it started walking towards me. The dog was messing about.
I thought it would fly away because either me or the dog would frighten it.
We kept walking towards each other, the bird and I.
It was like something from the OK Corral!
Closer, closer. When we were close to each other and ‘facing’ each other we both stopped walking.
I looked down at the bird that was the size of a pebble at my feet.
The small, tiny bird looked up at me. It’s small black eyes seemed to meet mine.
I was mesmerised seeing this small bird in extreme close up.
The tiny, frail bird was aware I was there and was not frightened.
I was a few inches away and I really wanted to know what type of bird it was so I bent down knowing I would frighten it away. The bird wasn’t afraid and it didn’t move. It kept looking up at me with black unblinking eyes. In the half light I saw -
- the bird’s beak was turned upward
- Its feet firmly planted on the ground.
- It showed in no fear.
- I watched mesmerised as it hopped away, caught a worm in the gloom, ate it and
- hopped back to me.
The dog was somewhere sniffing about in the grass.
The bird ignored the dog.
The dog ignored the bird.
I didn’t speak, the dog didn’t bark and the bird didn’t sing. All was silence.
This couldn’t go on.
It was a gloomy morning and I’d never actually been close enough to look down on a bird before from this angle.
I’d never actually seen a bird as this angle before - looking directly down onto it.
In the half light I saw soft, red breast feathers being ruffled by the breeze.
Robin redbreast
A vivid moment. A vivid memory. Is this what birds are about.
Ordinary ‘birdy’ moments stay with us as well, such as walking to the shop for the newspaper and a bird sings in the hedge. Coming back with the shopping and we hear birdsong
I seem to have robins at my bird feeders all the time at the moment so I’m glad they feel ‘at home’ hear. Sometimes I really feel like I run a Cafe for Birds and I have my regular customers who know me. Such nonsense.
That contact with a wild robin was so different to the time when our stray cat killed two robins
Robins can be nasty with each other
Did you know that Robins have feeding territories in the autumn and winter and they keep them with their sweet, soft bird songs.
Robins pair up as early as December. The hen builds a nest low and throughout incubation of the eggs the hen is fed by the cock robin.
A robin’s favourite food on the birdtable is crumbs, mealworms and cheese, but there are many good seed mixes especially for robins that can be fed on the bird table. It’s easy to buy a packet and feed the robin.