Evening Song

Wednesday, 1st June 2005

goldfinches
goldifnches
pheasant
pheasantpheasant
7 p.m. Goldfinches on the niger; I filled the feeder this morning and it's down to a third now. The pheasants are at home in the garden these days. We even had one in the front garden today, alongside the pavement on the heather bed.
greenfinchesgreenfinch
wood pigeon
wood pigeon
Greenfinches are more frequent visitors to the bird feeders than sparrows. They're most often on the sunflower feeder but will often go for the niger too. A wood pigeon swoops into next door's garden. When one lands on our feeder it makes the slim metal pole shake and it more than fills the mesh feeder tray when it lands there to fill its crop every evening.

blackbirdA blackbird sings from next door's shed, then moves to a song post on the roof. His signature phrase has a rhythm like this:

When- I - get stood - here - sing-ing,
I - keep - it - up for hours.

sparrowOr, as it seems to be in an English folk song tradition:

T'was ear-ly - in - the - morn-ing,
I start-ed - off - this song.

And, boy, can he keep it up. sparrowIt's similar to a nursery rhyme that I vaguely remember which went something like:

A farm-er - went - out walk-ing,
He took - his - gun along.

Imagine; if Paul McCartney had been inspired by this particular blackbird singing in the dead of night how different his song might have been:

I heard a blackbird singing,
T'was in the dead of night,
With these broken wing-ings
He didn't make the flight.

He'd never have got that knighthood. Next Page

Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk