Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie - Ken Gibbs

 

THE DOG COOLING OFF

One can only suppose that singing simple ‘rounds’ or nursery rhymes, remembering nonsensical proverbs and the like are much the same in any culture as they – in the English tradition at least – are used to teach the very young something of the rhythm of the language. The fact that they may not be logical is quite beside the point. Anyone who meets up with Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ could be forgiven for thinking that Lear was seriously unhinged. Or not too different from your typical UNICEF staff member, come to think of it. I speak with authority in this matter because I was a UNICEF staff member, at one time.

Cast your mind back to ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ or ‘Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez vous, dormez vous ?’ – and you’ll immediately remember some delightfully ridiculous pictures associated with them, and start humming the tune or reciting the rhymes taught us at our mothers’ knees.

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I have the advantage of many UNICEF staff or associates in that I was born on a farm in some forgotten corner of Africa and was brought up surrounded by nature; by the birds and the bees, the changing seasons, and the general fragility of life as the Second World War was raging in Europe and the far East. It was natural that any child brought up in such surroundings would see themselves as part of a rich pageant of life where the immediate was always the most important.

Speaking personally, I always awoke to the chitter of the masked weaver birds whose nests hung close to our windows. While everybody else called this ‘The Dawn Chorus’, to me with a hearing deficiency, it was more like a cacophony, so I had to look to bird body-language to translate what I was seeing. I couldn’t wait to see the new born chicks fledging clumsily with some of the unsuccessful ending as the cat’s breakfast.

With our family of five boys being spread over a twelve year period, our mother was having to teach us in a mix of stages all at the same time. My eldest brother was beginning to read the classics as my youngest brother was born. Our mother didn’t have a good singing voice but she certainly was able to remember a whole host of nursery rhymes so I, being exactly in years between the oldest and the youngest, heard them all. I never really did understand ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence, a Pocketful of Rye’ but for many years I could recite it, word perfect.

For anyone not brought up in the English tradition (which represents at least 95% of the world’s population), a visit to Wikipedia will fill in any gaps in learning about this odd nursery rhyme. It starts as ‘Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; four and twenty blackbirds, Baked in a pie’. It may be found by clicking here.

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BLACKBIRD – Turdus merula

Who would be a blackbird ? Not I, for sure, because the pair that live at the top end of our garden are seriously traumatised.

It goes like this: I take the dog for a walk most afternoons and as he is so keen to go, he has a lot of pent-up energy when I finally let him out the door. As with most dogs, they wish to show their dominance over their surroundings at such a time, and so too with ours. He looks to find another dog at which he can growl or bark but, he being an only dog as it were, there is none on offer. So, anything will do instead, and guess what is standing on the lawn quietly minding its own business?

Yes, you guessed it ! A blackbird.

The dog lunges at the blackbird while emitting a primeval and guttural snarl and it rises straight in the air with a shriek, losing some feathers in the process. It can be seen sitting in the tree nearby for the next ten minutes muttering to itself wondering what on earth it had done to deserve this treatment ? Later, it can be seen back on the same patch of lawn, but watching every movement around it, warily.

This happens each day, once a day, like clockwork. You’d think the blackbird would have learnt by now that sitting in the tree at 3 pm would be a lot less strain on the heart. But no.

In our garden we have a lot of camomile that grows between the flagstones, like a weed. In places, it may also be seen growing out of the dry stone hedge surrounding the herb garden. I am told that this isn’t the variety that you have to stroke and talk to quietly, for it to grow properly. Just as well, because I am sometimes given to kicking the tennis ball when it lodges itself in the camomile.

WREN – Troglodytes troglodytes

A few weeks ago, I saw a sight to warm the heart. A cheeky little 1½-inch fluff-ball was bouncing all over the camomile and it was only on closer inspection that I saw that it was, in fact, a wren. It seemed to be feeding on something in the camomile for it bounced from stem to stem inspecting each one with an intensity matched only by the speed with which it moved on. Periodically it dived into the camomile and appeared only seconds later, from the opposite side. It seemed to have two favourite patches of camomile, one on the flagstones and another on the side of the dry-stone wall.

Just yesterday, I saw the wren again, flitting from one camomile patch to another. One cannot help but smile at how something that is so tiny can be so active and I thought that it is small wonder that the wren is used on Christmas greetings cards. Suddenly, the wren spotted something I hadn’t seen – a pair of blackbirds in the herb garden. With astonishing speed, it flew straight at the nearest one which, luckily, was the one which the dog likes traumatising. It flew straight up into the air with a squawk and both blackbirds flew off to the same tree where they were seen to chatter to each other about how the neighbourhood had deteriorated so much that it was probably about time to find another place to live. . .

Yes, who would be a blackbird ?

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To be fair to the dog, he is normally very gentle. He and I often walk on the local golf course where he would like to pick up those little white, round things, but I won't let him as they are usually in play. However, there is one defile where there are shrubs on both sides, and he likes to lead me there so he can pick up any interesting smells without my interrupting him. He stopped suddenly and looked at what seemed to be one or two moths flying from the one side to the other until I realised that it was tiny fledging wren chicks, clumsily learning to fly. Dog was entranced and didn't react when one of them landed on his nose. He simply turned his head slowly towards me with a look of, "What am I supposed to do with this one, then ?" As I didn't encourage any reaction, he waited till the impossibly tiny chick bumbled its way back into the bushes. Dog and I had a chat about this where I indicated that he had done the right thing, and we continued on homewards.

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