The Bearded Tit Part 22

In Hardy's 'Darkling Thrush', birdsong is uplifting and positive. He is walking through the countryside one bleak, winter's evening when a thrush starts singing. He wonders what the thrush knows that he doesn't know.

So little cause for carolings So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around Afar or nigh around That I could think there trembled through That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air His happy good-night air Some blessed hope whereof he knew Some blessed hope whereof he knew And I was unaware And I was unaware.

Nightingales, blackbirds, swallows, swifts, sparrows and so many others make a near endless list of bird- or birdsong-inspired art. And invariably birdsong is life-affirming, it is about joy, about hope, about freedom. Sebastian Faulks's beautifully grim novel about love in the First World War is ent.i.tled simply Birdsong Birdsong.

To most people the sound of birds is their first, sometimes only, contact with nature. It is a powerful and beguiling connection to a non-human world. It is a contact number for the wild.

But Tori, for all her good ears and delight at birdsong, is a wise girl. She knows the true meaning of birdsong.

'Listen to that!' she said. It was one I recognized. We were on a scrubby heath above the town of Sheringham. It was an easy sound to learn. Two pebbles being clacked against each other followed by a short chirrup. The stonechat. So evocative of the high, coastal heath where we were. A beautiful sound.

'Beautiful to us,' Tori reminded me. 'Not to them. We humans plaster all sorts of deep and romantic meanings on to birdsong but to them it's communication. They're only interested in food, s.e.x and territory.'

'Territory's never bothered me that much,' I said as a whitethroat started its song nearby. 'Now, are you going to say that's not beautiful?'

Tori smiled. 'It is beautiful but it probably means 'Get away from my nest'.'

We walked back down the footpath towards the sea and took in the beautiful, joyous, romantic sounds of birds, tweeting their beautiful, joyous, romantic birdy messages.

'Look at the colour of my breast!'

'Get off my land!'

'Any chance of a f.u.c.k?'

HOBBY.

No, not that sort of hobby. Not the bird. The pastime. Oh yes, there is a bird called the 'hobby'. The bloke who invented the flicky table version of football called Subbuteo, wanted to call it 'Hobby', but he couldn't. So he chose the scientific name for the small bird of prey called 'hobby', which is Falco subbuteo Falco subbuteo, and means something like 'falcon lesser than a buzzard'. An odd description of this fascinating raptor. A favourite of mine.

Deadly as a hawk, sleek and elegant as a swift.

The only bird of prey that can take a swift on the wing.

And how else could it do it but by looking like a swift: small, slim, compact body with long, pointed, sickle-like wings. s.n.a.t.c.hing beetles and dragonflies from just above the water or reeds, this bird has no equal. It is effortless in grace and finesse. It's unusual, too, for a British bird of prey, in that it is a summer visitor to us from Africa. But that's not the hobby I meant.

I suppose drawing was my hobby as I grew up. Cartoons, silly monsters and birds. A lot of birds; cartoon birds and silly monster birds, as well. But it was never a proper hobby; it was something I'd do to while away the time when I should have been doing something else. But there comes a point when a mild interest becomes a hobby, an obsession.

My boyhood home in Cornwall overlooked a football pitch. Illogan British Legion FC. The bedroom I shared with my two brothers had a fantastic view of the pitch. In Highbury speak, we were at the 'Clock End'. Every Sat.u.r.day afternoon, we'd gather at the window and cheer on 'Luggan'. But unfortunately the goal at our end was obscured by a large hawthorn bush. From the age of seven to the present day, I've wanted to sneak out in the middle of the night with a chainsaw and chop it down. It would not have been difficult to work out who the culprit was, though. And the standard of football in those days probably wouldn't have merited such arboreal vandalism. On the one occasion our father actually took us into the ground to watch the match (and both sets of goalposts), we were shocked to find out they charged an entry fee.

'Four s.h.i.+llings?' scoffed my dad. 'We want to watch the match, not buy the team!'

But football was growing from while-away-the-time to mild interest and beyond.

I was nine in 1965 and bolshy enough to support the opposite team to my parents in the FA Cup final. As my parents were natives of St Helens in Lancas.h.i.+re, they supported Liverpool, of course. So I ended up supporting Leeds. This was sacrilege in our house: not only was Leeds not Liverpool, but it was also in Yorks.h.i.+re! But Leeds had only just come up from the second division so it was a foregone conclusion that the Reds would stuff them. In the event, Liverpool won two-one in extra time, and this merely cemented my fondness for Leeds, the underdog.

When you live in Cornwall and your nearest league team is Plymouth Argyle, you're allowed to support anyone. My interest in football outlived my interest in Leeds United and for years I was 'unaffiliated', except, of course, for watching Illogan out of the bedroom window whenever possible and keeping an amused eye on Argyle. I watched England matches in the unique way that England fans have: if they lost, it was because of individual players from a club you didn't support, or because of the FA, the despised footballing authorities that managed to c.o.c.k up every tiny aspect of running the game.

But it was moving to London in the late seventies and living less than a mile from Highbury, the home of a.r.s.enal, that made football for me go from mild interest to obsession.

My parents were dismayed. 'But, Rory, they're southern. How can you support a team from the south? A London team?'

The moment that made me realize a.r.s.enal were going to be big in my life was the day I bought the 'travel club' card. I already had a season ticket for the North Bank for home games; now I was going to be an away supporter. That was the defining a.r.s.enal moment for me.

Of course, things change. You get married, have a mortgage and two children, and no money; a.r.s.enal frustrate and irritate the h.e.l.l out of you and stop being an obsession, a way of life, and go back to being a mild interest.

Then there was running. One Christmas my younger brother returned from Spain, where he was living, looking fitter than I had ever seen him. He had taken up running.

'Running?' I said disparagingly. 'How can you take up running? Isn't running what you do when you run? You know, when you walk very fast? It's hardly a sport. It's hardly something you can 'take up'!'

He'd been running ten miles a day, five days a week for two years, and I foolishly accepted a challenge to race him.

'One mile,' I said confidently, because the last time I'd run I'd been quite fast. That was about ten years earlier, a factor I should probably have taken into consideration.

'No, a mile's too much for you,' my brother disparaged back.

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks,' I said. 'A mile is nothing.'

And so the race went ahead. We were together at the beginning for a few seconds then he disappeared into the distance. The next time I saw him was about five minutes later. He was leaning over me where I lay in the gutter about seventy-five yards from our house.

'Are you OK'

'I think I started too quickly,' I eventually uttered in between painful gasps for air.

Within a year, I had entered the London Marathon. Another defining moment. A new hobby. A weekly Sunday morning drive to take part in half marathons all over southern England. (Braintree was my best half-marathon time: ninety-three minutes.) And as for the London Marathon...Well, at the risk of sounding vain, I could have won it. I should have won; but unfortunately there were 17,000 other people in front of me. Then getting married, having children, getting divorced, eating and drinking too much came between me and my athletics career, so I eventually moved on to something more sedentary.

Then there was country and western music. I was asked to write a comedy country and western song. This would be great fun, I thought; C&W may be appallingly schmaltzy and embarra.s.singly self-pitying, but it is 'lyric led' so you can make verbal jokes, and also it only requires minimal guitar playing and compositional skills. (Three chords good...two chords perfect, as the saying goes.) For a fortnight I immersed myself in country music, listening to hundreds of tracks, traditional and contemporary. At the end of those two weeks, I was hooked; I loved country music and my life was going to be a waste unless I had actually sung on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.

And, dear reader, that I did. I'll explain later in a book that isn't about birdwatching.

Ah yes, birdwatching. The point at which I crossed the line between mild interest and obsession was the day I bought a spot-ting-scope. That's when you know you're hooked: the day you buy a bit of equipment, a piece of kit, a gadget. It was the day before my birthday, which is in the middle of March and therefore coming up to the best birdwatching time of the year. This was all the excuse I needed to splash out a bit of the overdraft on some pointless self-indulgence. And as any beginner knows, the worst thing about buying a gadget is that you have to go to a shop where everyone's an expert whose princ.i.p.al aim seems to be to make you look stupid and inferior.

'I'd like to buy a telescope, please.' Glances are smirked between the older, balding shop a.s.sistant and the spiky gel-headed junior.

'A telescope?' says the baldy.

'Yes, for birdwatching,' I offer helpfully.

A sn.i.g.g.e.r from the youth who says, 'You want a telescope for birdwatching?'

There is palpable mirth in the air. I have definitely made their day.

'So, where are these birds then? On the moon?'

Another sn.i.g.g.e.r.

'Er, I'm not sure I understand what you mean,' I said with as little amus.e.m.e.nt as possible, and they realized they were close to losing a customer.

'No, sorry, ha, no, we're just messing about. Thing is, erm...a telescope is usually for astronomy and things like that. If you're a twitcher, you want a spotting-scope, which I suppose is like a small telescope...'

Oh I see, of course; we're talking about arcane jargon, of which I'm ignorant and they're not, so they can make themselves feel briefly superior. Well, I wasn't standing for that.

What about if you want to spy on the woman in the house across the road?'

This shut them up and drew a worried glance from another customer.

'Right, I'll let you deal with this gentleman,' said the bald one to the youngster.

We established that I was a birdwatching beginner who needed a not-too-complex 'spotting-scope'. 'What sort of magnification were you thinking oft' the younger man went on matter-of-factly.

'Mmm, good question. It depends. I don't know how small the bird is yet.' I beamed inanely at him. The gel-head ignored this and proceeded to show me what he had in stock. He had become business-like but was still keen to pull technical rank on me.

'This is the MM2 Travelscope, retractable to 18cm, with wideband focusing wheel and retractable lens hood, dedicated MM225x and 15-40x eyepieces.' He hardly paused for breath.

'Mmm,' I mused expertly. 'Have you got a light blue one?'

'Black only,' he said, with no-nonsense eye contact.

'Shame. What about those three-legged things you stick them on?'

'Tripod?'

'Ah yes, tripod. That's the word I was looking for.'

'The Delta IV has a fluid head with reversible handle for left and right use and the G-clamp converts to a hide clamp system.' He finished with a small self-satisfied smirk.

'Excellent. Do you have one of those those in light blue?' in light blue?'

'No.'

'Shame. I'll take them anyway.'

Still just about on the warm side of frosty, but happy to have made such a pricey sale, the young man went about getting all the bits of kit from the stockroom, then unpacking, packing, wrapping and bagging them before writing up the bill of sale and putting it though the till. The whole process took about ten minutes, at the end of which he announced primly, '335.75, please.'

'Oh, hang on,' I said. 'I've changed my mind. How much is that magnifying gla.s.s?'

Pleased with my day's shopping I returned home and showed Tori my exciting new purchase.

'Look at this. Magnifying gla.s.s. 2.50. It's not quite what I wanted but it'll be fun. We can go ant-watching. And burn holes in bits of paper in the summer.'

'Right, well, while we're on the subject of buying silly things, I've got you something for your birthday. I know it's not till tomorrow but I'll give it to you now anyway. Close your eyes!'

When I opened my eyes I was thrilled. There before me was an MM2 Travelscope, with wide-band focusing wheel and retractable lens hood and a Delta IV tripod plus fluid head with reversible handle for left and right use, and with a G-clamp that converts to a hide clamp system.

A SMALL DULL BIRD.

There is a narrow tree-lined track that goes from the North Norfolk coast road (the A149) down to the salt marshes. It skirts the graveyard of t.i.tchwell church with its distinctive round flint tower. The lane is memorable to me for two reasons: first, there is a spectacular amount of dog s.h.i.+t there, particularly tricky to avoid when your eyes are on the sky; and, secondly, it was also the venue for a 'first' in my career as a grown-up birdwatcher. A beginner's true 'bird moment'.

One Sunday afternoon we were slaloming down this track in between the unscooped p.o.o.pers when we were stopped by a loud, clear, quite singular bird call. Though 'singular' may not be the best description. It consisted of two notes, the second slightly higher than the other. The bird producing this unique sound was perching openly high on the bare branches of a dead tree. Through our binoculars we could see a very small, pale brownish bird with a faint pale stripe through its eye.

Its song was unstinting. We were intrigued.

'No idea what that is,' said Tori.

'Me neither.'

Two men were walking down the path towards us. Judging by the amount of optical equipment they had strapped about them, these were hardened twitchers. I suppose we could have asked them if they knew what the bird was. But that might have made us look like foolish neophytes. So we relentlessly peered through our binoculars as they approached.

They might even say something like, 'Oh, I see you're looking at that fine specimen of a [say] dunnock.' Then we could nod knowingly with a, 'Yes, always nice to see a dunnock.'

They didn't say anything. In fact, as they walked past us they peered at us through narrowed eyes, then up to the bird, then back to us with an expression that said, loud and clear, 'What on earth are you looking at that for?' With that hint of displeasure, they went on their way, no doubt to photograph a flock of resplendent quetzals that had been blown off-course from Costa Rica.

At this point I should make it clear that there are thousands of birders out there who would obligingly and without any patronizing whatsoever help out a struggling beginner to find or identify a particular bird. These two men just were not of that clan. Similarly there are probably thousands of beginners who would happily accost a superior with a cheery: 'Do excuse us, but we're new at this birdwatching business and are struggling to identify this particular individual; we were wondering if you might be able to lend us a bit of your undoubtedly huge expertise?' But unfortunately, Tori and I, despite our inexperience and lack of technical knowledge, were blocked by pride and couldn't bring ourselves to ask.

Not only that, Tori and I felt, and still feel, that birding is not a communal thing; it's a personal thing. It's something just for the three of us: me, Tori and the bird, whatever that bird is. We, therefore, are disinclined to invite strangers into our little world. Though it would be nice to know what this tireless chirper was.

We watched and listened and listened and watched but we got no nearer to identifying it. Minute, with a piercing call; that was about it. Nondescript was the only way of describing it. After about forty minutes of scrutiny we, reluctantly, left and started walking back to the car to sc.r.a.pe the bottom of our shoes. On the way we were stopped in our tracks by another bird. We couldn't see this one but its noise was very distinctive. A harsh, explosive 'tchik!' Sometimes a double 'tchik, tchik!'

Tori and I looked blankly at each other.

'Never heard that before,' I shrugged.

'Me neither.'

A man walking a dog was approaching us. I thought I'd try a more cordial approach to birdwatching and ask him if he could help us.

'Do excuse us, but we're new at this birdwatching business and are struggling to identify this particular individual; we were wondering if you might be able to lend us a bit of your undoubtedly huge expertise?'

He gave us a look somewhere between defence and attack.

Another loud 'tchik, tchik!'

'Have you any idea what bird's making that sound?'

'I don't know,' he growled. 'And I don't care. Birds are all the b.l.o.o.d.y same.' He grumbled off down the track.

I shouted after him, the hand of birding friends.h.i.+p still extended, 'Thanks for your time anyway!' Then, under my breath after a pause, 'Hope you clear up your dog s.h.i.+t, a.r.s.ehole.'

But, hey, do you know what? Coincidentally, a week later, Tori got a birthday present from one of her children: a DVD of common garden birds. The first bit was devoted to birds that come to your garden to visit nut-feeders. One was the flamboyant great-spotted woodp.e.c.k.e.r. 'Unmistakable,' said the commentary, 'at your feeder, but hard to see in a deciduous wood. Most easily located by its distinctive call: a harsh, explosive tchik? tchik?

Aha. A new chunky piece of bird knowledge.

Also featured on the DVD was a bird singing from the bare branches of a dead tree. It could have been filmed down dog-s.h.i.+t lane in t.i.tchwell, hurling its disproportionately loud, bi-tonic song from the treetops.

As one, Tori and I pointed at the screen and said, 'That's it!'