As I ate my lunchtime baguette on a bench in Kensington Gardens today, a flashy young starling flew down and stationed himself at my feet. Fixing me with a stern eye, he threw back his head and launched into an impromptu recital, a concert of piercing swooping whistles interspersed with chuntering trills. After several minutes of this virtuoso stuff (actually it was nothing to the starlings who haunted my boyhood back garden, giving convincing impressions of the telephone, the lawn mower and the guinea pig), he stopped and tilted his head towards me meaningfully. It was clear he had been singing for his supper, but I'm afraid I didn't oblige; if I had thrown him one crumb, the voracious tree rats would have been upon me and I wouldn't have had a moment's peace. The glossy starling flew off with only mild disappointment to slouch on a nearby tree branch... And then I noticed that the Wood Anemones were out - the blues, and a few white. Such a beautiful flower - I'm sure I must have blogged about it before... Oh yes, so I have.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Starling and Windflowers
As I ate my lunchtime baguette on a bench in Kensington Gardens today, a flashy young starling flew down and stationed himself at my feet. Fixing me with a stern eye, he threw back his head and launched into an impromptu recital, a concert of piercing swooping whistles interspersed with chuntering trills. After several minutes of this virtuoso stuff (actually it was nothing to the starlings who haunted my boyhood back garden, giving convincing impressions of the telephone, the lawn mower and the guinea pig), he stopped and tilted his head towards me meaningfully. It was clear he had been singing for his supper, but I'm afraid I didn't oblige; if I had thrown him one crumb, the voracious tree rats would have been upon me and I wouldn't have had a moment's peace. The glossy starling flew off with only mild disappointment to slouch on a nearby tree branch... And then I noticed that the Wood Anemones were out - the blues, and a few white. Such a beautiful flower - I'm sure I must have blogged about it before... Oh yes, so I have.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What do you drink with your baguette?
ReplyDeleteWater Dearieme, only water - I'm not a daytime drinker, lost the knack years ago.
ReplyDeleteOnly after I posted it did I realise the unhappy implication. Sorry, old fruit.
ReplyDeleteChuntering - a curiously rare and interesting choice of word. Nige, do you have a favourite word?
ReplyDeleteAlso, would you be able to recommend a creative writing class? Or offer some tips on editorial style?
I love to learn - life is a work in progress!
reading your blog is always an uplifting experience Nige!
ReplyDeleteThe Aussie cricketer Glenn McGrath was renowned for his chuntering (as are many Aussie cricketers). I had it in my head that one of his nicknames was Glenn "Chunterer" McGrath so I googled it to check.
ReplyDeleteThe result was amusing.
My favourite word is seldom.
ReplyDeleteThe starling sang for you. You could have thanked him with a crumb. Squirrels are not 'tree rats'. I think I like you less after reading this post.
ReplyDeleteAh, its always worth knowing when someone anonymous on the internet says that he or she likes you less than he or she, whoever he or she is, did before, however much that was, because of something you said about squirrels.
ReplyDeleteSquirrels pshaw! They're not squirrels...
ReplyDeleteEveryone on here is anonymous.
ReplyDeleteCompletely wrong, Anonymous. There is a second realm, of monikerness, which is wholly different to anonymousness.
ReplyDeleteMonikerness indeed - that's it! Thanks Brit.
ReplyDeleteSquirrels!? Here, in British Columbia, I was certain pigeons were being referred to.
ReplyDelete