Golfball

Love, Long Tailed Tits, Beethoven and Birdsong

Golfball, on the right

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Hello. This post is about Birds (Death only gets a fleeting mention).

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I was recently told that if you’re struggling to write you should just start writing; as in, literally write anything, just put your stream of consciousness down. So, I tried that and, in the spirit of shameless self-expression (just kidding, there’s loads of shame), I thought I’d share what I wrote when I tried that:

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I have nothing to say. There’s nothing there. I want to write about a bird that I love but I can’t feel my body. Help. Why can’t I feel my body? I want to be in a bubble bath in the middle of a field of lavender, smoking opium and listening to Beethoven and Birdsong, but I’m hunched miserably over my laptop like a character from a dystopian novel about lower-tier-non-transhumans living in the year 2043.”

That latter thought prompted me to close my laptop and look outside.

The first thing I saw was a Sparrow teaching her fledglings how to use the bird-feeder which hangs on our rosebush. One of them had the hang of it, the other two were using the opportunity to sit on the bird feeder as their mother took seeds and deposited them directly into their mouths. They yelled incessantly at her, and their siblings, whenever they did not have a mouth full of food.

As this scene unfolded, my beloved suggested that we humans can be much like these tiny Sparrows; essentially indignant when we are not having our every need taken care of—a part of us desperate for a return to that brief time when we were cared for, absolutely.

My mind drifted towards the times when, in adulthood, I had truly felt as though everything were ok, and I was transported to the time that I befriended a Long Tailed Tit.

Long Tailed Tits are native to Europe and Asia, and their tails are only long in comparison to their very little (around 2 inches, fully grown) bodies. They are inquisitive and sociable, and if you see one you are likely about to see many more, as they will always be with their mate or their flock. Their nests are pure works of art; made from lichen, moss and spiderwebs, lined with many hundreds of collected feathers.

When I first saw a Long Tailed Tit nest, I became privately inconsolable that I am human-sized. Image: RSPB

They do not migrate, and so their sociability is of great importance come the Winter when they huddle together for warmth. In fact, so socially minded are these impossibly small friends of ours that ornithologists have seen the aunts and uncles of hatchling Long Tailed Tits helping to provide food for them. These birds are tiny angels, whom we should all aspire to be more like.

But, back to my Long Tailed Tit friend. I named him Golfball, though his body was smaller than a golfball. He had come to the rescue centre after his nest had been disturbed (which is why it is imperative to thoroughly check any hedges or bushes before pruning between March and August—or better yet, just leave them be). Golfball had done extremely well and was in an aviary, practising flying, perching on, and hanging upside down from, branches and bouncing around inquisitively while incessantly tweeting his high-pitched tweets, when we first met.

The aviaries serve as a stepping stone into adulthood for juvenile birds. They are outdoors and have food and water available, but are mostly independent, only having a two-hourly feed from a human should they choose to accept it. On entering an aviary, some birds will quickly let you know that they do not accept it, and that they would much prefer you leave—usually a sign that they’re ready for the big wide world. We go to great lengths at the rescue centre to ensure that animals do not become tame, and do not imprint on the people caring for them (the owl feeders wear full, reflective face masks as owls are so prone to this)—Long Tailed Tits, however, arrive tame. Such is their social nature.

I didn’t know this at the time, and I went into the aviary unsure of the response I’d receive. The response I got was one of a tiny, seemingly joyful bird, flying over to greet me like an old friend—landing first on my shoulder to tweet his hello’s directly into my ear, before hopping onto my collarbone and bobbing along to nestle down inside the neck of my sweater, just below my chin.

After a minute he hopped out of my top, and onto a branch to be eye-level with me, tweeting & opening his mouth to be fed; which he was. He developed a routine of hopping from branch, to shoulder, to finger, to branch, and then back to wiggle his little body into the neck of my jumper.

Standing there, feeling his tiny, warm, impossibly soft little self rise and fall with each breath that I tentatively took, everything was ok. Everything was perfect, in fact.

This week I was reminded of a line from a poem by the incomparable Andrea Gibson:

Everything but ‘I love you’ is small talk

And, I have to say, I agree. Does this mean I think we should all be walking around saying nothing but ‘I love you!’ to each other? Well, no. And also, yes.

There are more ways to say I love you than there are stars in the sky. Every time I offer a little bird some food on the end of an artists brush, I am saying ‘I love you’. When I ask someone how they are, and I mean it, I am saying ‘I love you’. When I say absolutely nothing but I listen intently I am saying ‘I love you’. When I rail at the Gods over the Death of my friend, I am saying to him ‘I love you, I love you’.

I loved Golfball, and love him to this day. He was successfully released, and joined a flock. I think about him daily, thanking him for cracking my heart open in a way that, sometimes, only something very small and very unassuming can do.

Thank you for taking the time to read this {I love you}.

Long Tailed Tits, lovingly keeping each other warm. Photograph by Gavin Vella