What air’s from home…

Sometimes – and sometimes more fittingly than we may care to observe… – Mother Nature schedules her tasks and happenings more fruitfully and frequently (and therefore with much more granularity) than simply the succession of seasons obvious to even the most imperceptive of eyes. Waking late, yesterday morning, my habitual appraisal of the front garden, and the youngish oak which stands sentinel over it, revealed a large selection of cleanly-broken twigs on the green verges beneath, scattered by the recent sharp winds (harbingers, it seems, of yet more of Winter’s cold, unforgiving, grasp; and its reluctance to depart – despite Spring puncturing the jackstrawn turf with the tiny xanthous blooms of narcissus and primrose; and the local finches’ songs, above, swelling with Summer warmth…).

This time last year, a brace of wood pigeons gained from such well-timed jetsam – their lumbering nidamental flights to the emerald sanctuary of holly, mere yards away (garnished with two dozen famished fieldfares during the recent snows), frequently farcical to behold: as the pair simply attempted to grasp each fallen limb regardless of its measure or mass – thus, oftentimes, launching with baggage too heavy, or simply unbalanced – so tumbling repeatedly from their impetuous bills. And yet, apparently without too much fuss, they manufactured (and mended) a fertile home: which yet clings resiliently to its nestling boughs, with, it appears, little need for further repair.

Now, though, the jackdaws, primarily, will benefit – as news spreads through the corvine roosts, and finds its way to the burgeoning partnerships frequently holding court on chimney stack and aerial – their approach to the task of construction more quick-witted and calculated (especially as the trees they must return to are many more wing-flaps distant; and the gales which felled the timber still hold sway). I watched one such bird evaluate several of the broken morsels: a swift peck enough to gauge their suitability (or not), usually after a patient scrutineering stare. Once, then lifted, each one would be levered – using a dexterous claw, or a jab against the tough turf – until perfectly balanced in the beak. A test-flight to the ridge of a nearby house; more fine adjustment; and the majority would be woven homewards through the buffeting breeze.

How many hard-won building blocks were lost in transit, or stolen from their distant destination (there is no honour amongst the base, black, daws and crows, as they jumble for seniority and security of tenancy…) – or would not hold when placed in the crooks of faraway branches – I cannot tell. And yet the rookeries hereabouts will swell as they always must: their creations more architectural, more thought-through, than the pigeons’ rough (but ready) creation.

PS: And so a parallel comparison of seemly, cordial Church Farm Court, with neighbouring, inappropriate, ill-faced appendage Red Horse Close, vaults, unbidden, to mind…. No doubt there will be more of these ticky-tacky, tawdry tracts of urban development thrust into Tysoe’s grudgeful roots. I, for one, though, will be gawping up into the trees: gazing with respect and delight at their freshly-woven cradles – intelligently crafted; and engineered, not only to fit, but to be fit for purpose; and by creatures with an instinctive, obvious and superior sense of the aesthetic.