Eden Wild Goose Nature
Nature notes from the Focus Magazine May 2022

Everyday delights

 
A few days ago, I was in my kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil. While I waited, I looked out of the window at the bird feeder, as I often do, just to check for any bird action that might be going on.
 
On the grass, under the feeder, there were two robins. Such a common sight, they were facing each other, a couple of feet apart. But this time, something that was new to me was happening, something I’d never seen. One of them had its little neck extended, and its chest puffed up as big as it could, and all the while it was swaying its body rhythmically from side to side and trilling away, head stretched high. Its wings and tail were tensed as well, as if the display was taking all of its energy. The bird, seemed, quite literally, full of the joys of spring. The other robin, the female, watched with interest, but also played a little bit coy, apparently not wanting to give too high an approval score straight away. After all, she may have thought, other robins are available.
 
This carried on for a minute or two, and I was far too entranced to grab my phone and snatch a short video. After a while they flew off to the nearby undergrowth, presumably to carry on their courtship a little more discreetly. Hopefully, in the words of all the best fairy tales, they lived happily ever after- or at least for a while because any robin’s life is really a rather violent affair.
 
Anyway, what struck me about this brief encounter was the fact that something that must be very common, judging from the numbers of robins we all get to see, was entirely new to me. How is it, I wonder, that it’s possible to live oblivious of the little natural dramas that surround us?
 
Every time I get to notice something new, that in some small way deepens my appreciation of the complexity of the world outside of ourselves, I just feel so blessed. It feels like another step of understanding of the deeper beauty that surrounds us, and that we can be a part of, if we take the time- sometimes just as long as it takes a kettle to boil-to look and listen.
 
Philippa Skinner