This Bird Has Flown - Bless You, Billy

 

A recent episode of the new All Creatures Great and Small took me back to my childhood. The story included a blue budgerigar, left at the vet’s surgery for minor treatment, to be collected later by the owner, a blind lady. Spoiler alert – skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to know what happens. Sadly, the budgie chooses this excursion to fall off his ornithological perch, expired. Rather than give the lady bad news, the vet decides to replace her pet with another and is sure she won’t know the new budgie is a green one. The small detail of the blue one never singing and the green one being very chirpy was overlooked, otherwise all was well in the end.

One day when I was a young child, I came home from school to find a new addition to the family. In the sitting room, in a cage hooked on to one of those bird-stands, a pretty, pale blue budgerigar was tutting to its reflection in its own vanity mirror, head going side to side. I was in awe, it was so sweet and I loved it straight away. We named him Billy. My dad took charge of his care but showed me how to top up Billy’s seeds, give him fresh water and wedge a piece of cuttlefish shell between the bars of the cage to rub his beak on. I was thrilled to have another pet. We had a dog that liked his own company and a cat that was always pregnant or nursing kittens, so it was better to leave her alone. I could stand and talk to Billy, tell him about school and how I was doing. I was shocked to go to the cage after school one day and find a green budgie. My dad told me Billy had matured. He said all budgies started off blue and turned green into adulthood. Of course, I believed him I had no reason not to. Many years later the truth came out. Bless him for saving my tears. I have read that some types of budgies do change colour as their feathers are replaced, but this tends to be a shade darker, or a mix.

Lovely Billy, blue or green, long gone but remembered with fondness and All Creatures Great and Small gave me a happy memory.

Maya Angelou's Caged Bird

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lost - with a song in my heart?

I am a big fan of wild birds. I have an old apple tree in the middle of my lawn and every day I top up the feeder that hangs from a lower branch. I often watch through the window when I write. I keep an eye open through the open kitchen door when washing up. I am often rewarded by visits from blue tits, great tits, chaffinches and goldfinches. I am thrilled when the long tail tits visit and love to see tree sparrows, a species in steady decline now. 

Robins are regular visitors. One sits on the highest branch of my 100ft sycamore, trilling his wonderful songs. Last year I found some cushion stuffing blowing round the lawn and hooked it on the branches of the apple tree. When I trimmed the privet hedge in late summer, I found a small, perfect cup, the size of half a tennis ball: a nest made from the same synthetic stuffing. In winter, I have been fortunate to see jays, a tawny owl,  three waxwings (that was incredible) and a pair of grey wagtails. One Christmas Day, we sat down to lunch and watched a lesser spotted woodpecker picking off the last hawthorn berries. There was snow on the ground that year, quite a rare event on the Fylde Coast.

Birdsong is always in the air. Sometimes I listen to a CD of birdsong, in an attempt to recognise my little visitors when the light is too difficult to see their colours or they are obscured by leaves. It has been several years since I saw or heard a song thrush at home. I remember my Grandmother was always delighted to see one. I am not sure how many are left now but I will keep looking out. I take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch every January. The song thrush didn't make the Top 20 in Lancashire this year. Click on the link if you want to see the results or take part in the survey next January.   https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/results/

In September, during a short break in Kos, I was upset to see wild birds in cages in restaurants and outside in gardens. We sat in a beach front café in Agios Stefanos, listening to a caged goldfinch sing magnificently as it charged frantically back and forth long the perch in the caged. Kos is a beautiful island and to see a wild creature exploited as entertainment always distresses me. A wild bird is meant to be free, "why have the wings, unless you're meant to fly and tell me please, why have a mind unless to question why?" Bergman, Bergman, Legrand.

The subject of birds coming close to extinction has been a feature of the news this week. Many species of wild song birds native to Java in Indonesia are nearing extinction. They are captured, caged and enslaved because of their wonderful vocal repertoire. There are competitions held all over Indonesia in which caged birds sing for massive cash prizes: A top crooner can win equivalent to £60,000. In a poor country, this is huge incentive. It is driving Java's songbirds to extinction.

It is estimated that there are only 80 pairs of this exquisite green bird with bright red beak and black masked eyes left in the wild in Java. Experts from Chester Zoo are now conducting a captive breeding program. Isn't it sad.

Human beings are not content to subjugate and enslave each other. When I worked in Tenerife, we often found baby chimpanzees dead on the beach. Their photographer owners would drug them and dress them in baby clothes. They were cute. People loved having their picture taken with a baby chimp. The trouble is that babies grow up and then they are not useful: then they are drowned in the sea and wash up on the beach. The photographer just gets another baby chimp - wrenched from it's grieving mother - a near relative of every one of us. The world closes its eyes to the exploitation of wild creatures. We are still unable to stop the exploitation of children in third world countries and sex slavery in our own.

Caged Bird

by Maya Angelou

     

     A free bird leaps
 on the back of the wind

     and floats downstream

     till the current ends

     and dips his wing

     in the orange sun rays

     and dares to claim the sky.
 

     But a bird that stalks

     down his narrow cage

     can seldom see through

     his bars of rage

     his wings are clipped and

     his feet are tied

     so he opens his throat to sing.
 

    The caged bird sings

    with a fearful trill 

    of things unknown

    but longed for still

    and his tune is heard

    on the distant hill

    for the caged bird 

    sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

    and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

    and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

    and he names the sky his own.  

  

    But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

    his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

    his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

    so he opens his throat to sing.
  

   The caged bird sings

   with a fearful trill

   of things unknown

   but longed for still

   and his tune is heard

   on the distant hill

   for the caged bird

   sings of freedom.

 

 

Thank you for reading - Adele

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