17th October 2023.
On this sea rock sans badger, fox, squirrel and mole. I earwig the missus on the phone. “Hubby’s so missing the mammals he’s cultivating vermin.” So harsh.
Bookended as we are in our little terrace by Cap’n Fudge on one side and Queen Pidge on t’other, the missus and me stick to coping best we can.
Fair enough, it was me that declared we don’t get many visitors. Earning one of the missus’ looks. “Compared to Queen Pidge, we lack birds,” I clarify.
The missus’ raised eyebrow’s noncommittal.
On I plough. “There’s rarely a robin. Not one tit. A pair of goldfinches did sit on your cherry tree the moment after I planted it. But they’ve never been back. So its just the sparrow mob, really.”
“You need a bird station,” the missus says matter-of-factly.
“Great minds think alike,” I reply.
We head to the garden centre. Returning with topical grub and a metal specimen designed for the peckish, average-sized garden bird. I hammer pole into flower bed with gusto as the radio commentator signs off the cricket season with “Winter well”. The missus and me fully intended to.
The postie duly delivers ‘Unruly’, David Mitchell’s ribald, hot off the press, history book about the kings and queens of England. Something to dip into in addition to the 4800g container of gherkins pickled in watermelon rind, celery sticks, dill, rock salt and water. The hard graft of her gardening parents and meant for Christmas.
That said, under a changeable sky, the unseasonably warm outdoors is where the real action is. High-pitched mewls are audible. A noise island visitors oft mistake for distressed kittens. Windsurfing juvenile gulls pray their voices soon break. Flying duck gangs quack cacophonous encouragements. Crows caw sarcastically. Magpies chack-chack asides. A surreptitious bird, however, zips it. Aloof from its brethren. Preferring its secret place. Us.
Next door, Cap’n Fudge’s boat returns to his driveway to overwinter, a gurt yellow crane having heaved it dripping from the harbour where oyster catchers peep. The seasonal chore to furbish up the cathedral – the holy term for hull – is, however, put on hold. As the fudge maker bags up a storm day’s fallen leaves and twigs from on and around his first love, a swanky, white, Tesla car. Before hand-bathing it using bucket and sponge.
“Tesla was adopted by a pigeon,” the missus says informatively as, periscope fashion, a head belonging to genus Columba rises above the garden shed roof ridge. Not for the first time.
“Bully for Tesla,” I say.
I mean, good old Nikola. Balkan-Yank. Genius inventor. Futurist. Celibate. Plus Order of the White Eagle. So absolutely plausible Nikola Tesla had a tender spot for a pigeon. But, Heaven’s sake, Nikola actually admitted he loved his bird – white as Cap’n Fudge’s battery-powered beast – as a man loves a woman. Insisting, it wholly loved him back. A tad presumptuous. But cupboard love does go through the tum.
However, in 1943, he was adamant that, “As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life.” Little surprise then when, shortly after the bird pegged it, a rheumy, emaciated, ironically penniless, octogenarian Nikola toppled off his own twig. Had to have been his broken heart, folk said.
So what of the periscope? Confidence risen, it emerges in rude health. Exhibiting the usual: upper grey-blue feather pattern and buff undercarriage. Nothing really distinguishing. Apart from a missing white neck collar. Fate bestowing instead a right side white spot that’s stud-like, and… well, ‘and’ indeed!
No way could I let the goer-alone Darwinism candidate think we’re its adopted hosts due to any hidden generosity on my part. Fully on the sparrows side and reckoning my death’ll be from overexercise, I windmill my arms loon-like. The pigeon shuffles a short retreat. And huffs.
Dammit. Man-up, be brash, I tell myseIf. There can be no love lost between me and this ruddy bird. At all. Yet… yet, it was hard to deny my smidge of sympathy.
Because Queen Pidge is a misguided pensioner. Daily at dawn she offers up a front of house, seed-chuck-fest. Upon which the awaiting pigeon horde goes full Hitchcock. An experience best missed for one who discovers that Queen Pidge’s outhouse abutting our back garden offers passage to Nirvana. Out of the blue.
Down the slippy, grey slate roof our adopter slithers. Akin to a ski slope beginner before a flap-jump. Earning, from me, the name Chamonix Stud. Stud for short. The missus pooh-poohs it, disapproving of the salacious connotation. Settling instead on Aramis, one of Dumas’ musketeers. The name she say means ‘a problem for everyone’. “Spot on,” I concede as our no nonsense bird station now has a list. Course there’s fall out. Of various kinds.
“NOOO! Stop doling out so much feed!” admonishes the missus.
“I’m compensating,” I say.
“The pigeon’s bathing in it!”
The sparrow mob, doing turns bobbing on perch-on-and-bend bamboo stems, chatter indignantly. Which is a bit of a draw.
Someone’s insurgent ginger and white blotched cat slinks peregrinations. I hiss at it. For peeing on the bougainvillea. But the mog has a fan. The missus. “Come, I invite you,” she entreats. “Find that nasty rat.”
Brown, black-bead-eyed, loafing between back of shed and the patio chiminea’s log pile, was last seen conducting the discordant gull choir with a stick. Conceding, ratty’s presence is primarily Aramis’ fault, I energetically interrupt the bird’s metronomic guzzle-pecks. Aramis gives me a fathomless stare. | try diplomacy.
“You’re not a sparrow,” I say. I show the bag of bird seed. The sparrow illustration printed on it is very clear. “Whatever,” Aramis clearly thinks, switching attention to the sparrows favourite: fat balls that hang in a spirally, springy-metal job. There’s further fall out and a diplomatic fail.
I clap my hands and growl “Shoo!”. Aramis doesn’t really. Plumping for a flower bed stomp-search for fatty crumbles and seed scatter, some of which has already germinated to grass that’ll need weeding. Burgundy petals are clumsily nudged from the Ebb Tide rose. And a bee off the hebe. A Gazania or Treasure Flower is trampled. And, sure as hell, I’ll have to wash the flat-leafed parsley.
More arm windmilling.
Fully into the game now, Aramis hops atop the rose arch. Treads on the delicate climbing honeysuckle. Then shambles up and over the shed roof ridge for a reprise of the periscope act.
The rat does a leftovers hoover.
Dimpsey time this morning, 7ish, my marmalade on pumpkin bread brekkie’s interrupted. ’Whaa-whaa-whaa-whaa-whaa-whaa’. The beating sound of landing wings. Guess who?
I bookmark my page in ‘Unruly’ where Mitchell writes that a sparkly metal hat conveyed authority and asserted power. Logical my tweed cap isn’t up to the job in a battle of wills.
Aramis sits expectant. Acknowledging a pretty effortless win. Summed up and judged, I harrumph resignation. Sprinkle a handful more sparrow food. Insert another fat ball in the spiral.
“You softy,” the missus yawns. “You’re halfway to going full Tesla… And please stop hissing at that cat. The rat is not our friend.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I respond, heading to endanger gherkins.
“Oh, looky, looky!” The missus points out at the bird station. “Aramis seems to have found a friend. A bit podgy but flawless white collar. Let’s call it Porthos.”
Push coming to shove, all will winter well. Although, about the, as yet, unseen tits and finches I truly can’t comment.
I just hope ratty hasn’t got mates. Nor… the wee mouse. The piddling cat, I wholly, now, forgive.
Illustration & text © 2023 Zum Beamer/Charles Wood.
Zum Beamer 