I HAVE NO INTEREST IN BIRDS

I have no interest in birds.

Compare them with plants.

Plants are nearly all different. See a blackbird and, however beautiful it is, however well it sings, I’ll only know it’s the same individual as yesterday if it’s in roughly the same place. And even that’s an assumption.

* * *

When I was eleven and changed schools, I tried to make friends with identical twins. I’d read books where twins were able to swap places and confuse people. I’d always wished I could be a twin. I longed for someone who thought the same way as me. That being impossible, being friends with twins was the nearest I could do. Maybe something of their twin-ness would rub off on me?

They were very nice girls but we had little in common. They spent their lunch times in the school library pouring over books about birds. I tried to be interested in birds too. Failed. We drifted apart. Not that we were ever close. They had the glory of twin-ness. Being ‘not-a-twin’ didn’t have the same wish-I-were-your-friend appeal. They had no reason to seek me out. And I wasn’t interested in birds.

* * *

Where I live, there are lots of Herring Gulls. Although the young birds look very different from older birds, and teenage birds (in terms of development) look different from both, I understand that even experts find it difficult to tell adult birds apart - even males from females.

* * *

We don’t get many birds in our garden. When I first lived here, starlings and blackbirds were enthusiastic leatherjacket eaters. I’d stand in the window and count how many each could get in its beak. (Not for scientific reasons - I was simply impressed.) There are sometimes tits - though I worry about them. Are they eating grubs on the apple tree or stripping it of buds? Very occasionally, I’ve noticed a wren scurrying about on the ground - and recently a robin in the bay tree. (Though I doubt it will hang around once it knows I’ve nothing to dig).

* * * 

A few weeks ago, three blackbirds were braving cats daily. They liked the red cotoneaster berries. So, when I found the chocolate mint had been eaten to the ground by sawfly larvae (I guess) and the nasturtium near it was gnawed to its stem by . . . by something . . . I scrabbled around for dropped leaves and tugged them out from under the box edging, ruffled the surface of the earth, pulled it all onto the path, spread it out, sprinkled it with bird seed, decorated it with contoneaster berries as a lure - and waited for birds to come and eat the pests. Not a sign. Not a wing. Not a beak.

Yesterday afternoon, I listened to a bit of Gardener’s Question time on the radio. They were talking about Gooseberry Sawfly. The grubs are too bitter to eat so birds don’t touch them.

Bother.

Ducks are different. I like them.

Tweet

You can see sawfly and other disasters in my garden.
(Blooming Nuisances.)