A carrot-headed young fellow, with collar-length hair and a round, freckled face, takes off his ear-protectors. “’Scuse me?”
“You’ve killed all the baby birds.” I spurt the words out, spraying spittle with them.
He looks at the hedge, eyes squeezed tight against the sun, holds his breath a moment, hesitates. “Sorry.”
“See what you’ve done now.” Jacob is crying out and complaining. The Sparrows are cheeping, calling to the other Sparrows. The Blackbirds are making a terrible crying sound that I’ve never heard from them before.
The young fellow gazes at the Thrushes and the Robins and the Titmice flying back and forth over the hedge, to the field and back again, over the heads of his co-workers, towards me. A cloud passes over his blue eyes. He stops the other two men and points at the Sparrows just across from him. They fall silent and I can hear the birds cry out even louder. They’re calling and calling, exactly as they do when Magpies attack their nests, but this time they don’t stop.
I stay where I am until the men are out of sight. All the birds have deserted the hedge. Only Jacob remains. I call him, offer a peanut. He doesn’t come.
I walk along the hedge looking for nests, to see if there are any babies left behind. I can’t see anyone any more, just little feathers caught among the cut leaves and twigs. At the corner I find a little one that has fallen from its nest. It’s a Sparrow, newly fledged. I carefully lift up the little brown body, already knowing that things aren’t right. The creature trembles and then goes totally still, stiller than any stillness that holds life. With my other hand I make a little hollow in the earth beneath the hedge, lay him gently down, then cover him up.
The silence wraps itself round me, accompanies me home, where the Great Tits are flying around more nervously than normal. I put food on the bird table for them, earlier than I usually do. Perhaps this will distract them—peanuts, bread, some pieces of pear, but nothing fatty because it’s the nesting season.
This late springtime green is still overwhelming, still so brilliant—a luxuriant abundance. I sit down on one of the old garden chairs by the front of the house. My hip seems to want to work itself free from my body. This damned old body.
Terra lands on my shoulder. Her tiny claws prick into the fabric of my blouse. She is so dependent on me, even though she never sleeps indoors. She made her nest in the tall apple tree, thank goodness, not in the hedge. The hedge-cutting didn’t make much of an impression on her—she has enough experience to know that it’s not worth getting too excited. She taps her beak against my shoulder, very lightly, as if she’s trying to remind me of something.
STAR 1
Behaviourism, the theory that dominates all contemporary research into animal behaviour, assumes that scientifically valid data can only be obtained in situations free from extraneous stimuli, in which reactions can be measured in reproducible experiments. The animal mind, which includes the human mind, is viewed as being a kind of black box into which we have no access. From this standpoint, the description of natural behaviour adds little to scientific knowledge since such behaviour cannot objectively be measured. Darwin’s work on animal intelligence, for example, is regarded as unscientific because it is primarily based on anecdotal evidence. Behaviourism, however, does not properly take account of the fact that many animals behave differently in captivity than when they are free. Most birds are timid by nature, actually often afraid of human beings, and when they are kept in laboratories their behaviour and the research results are bound to be affected. Furthermore, any empirical research based on the notion that the thoughts and feelings of animals are unknowable can only produce results that support this picture. If you perceive someone as a machine, then your research questions will reflect that, and will determine the space in which the object of your enquiry can respond. Note well, I have deliberately used the word “object” here. The so-called objective method of studying animals is, therefore, just as coloured by assumptions as any other.
It is now well over ten years since I moved to the little house in Sussex that I would later call Bird Cottage. It is situated on the edge of a small wood and is close to an area of great natural beauty where countless birds and other creatures live: Wood Pigeons and Cuckoos, Foxes and Badgers, Field Mice and Moles, Buzzards and Tawny Owls, Chiffchaffs and Pochards. In the trees and bushes surrounding the house there are also a great number of small birds, such as Blackbirds, Great Tits, Robins and Sparrows. Soon after moving in I set up a bird table on the terrace in front of the cottage, and at seven o’clock each morning and at five in the afternoon I would put out all kinds of titbits for them. I also placed a bird bath there and hung up a few nest boxes: on the house itself, the old oak and the apple tree. It did not take long for the first inquisitive Titmice to come and investigate. The Sparrows immediately chased them off. They will take over any territory if they have the chance. But the Sparrows were more afraid of me than the Tits were, and because I spent a great deal of time observing the birds from the garden bench, all of them had the opportunity to eat the food on the table, and all could inspect the changes that were happening in the house.
I came to live here in February 1938. Most of the birds were already busy looking for places to build their nests and, in some cases, for a suitable mate. They were more interested in each other than in me. In March, however, that began to change. One of the Great Tits, Billy, an older male with a proud bearing and a loud voice, was cheekier than the rest. He was the first to fly each morning to the bird table and every afternoon he would visit the bird bath for an elaborate wash. One warm day in April he flew through the open window and into the house. He fluttered around the sitting room and then rushed swiftly out of the window again. The next day he came once more. One of the ways that Great Tits learn is by watching each other closely, and before very long Billy’s partner, Greenie, came inside with him too. I called her Greenie because of the green sheen on her feathers. From then on I always left the top light of the window open so they could fly in and out as they pleased. This was the start of a very special way of living that has continued to this very day, and has taught me a great deal.
1900
“Look, Lennie.” Papa is holding something in his hands. I run towards him.
“Is it a Titmouse, Papa?”
“It’s a Blue Tit. He’s fallen from his nest. I found him under one of the beech trees, by the girls’ school. Or rather, Peter found him.” Peter wags his tail at the sound of his name. “Now, you keep hold of him for a moment, and I’ll find a box to put him in.”
Its little feathers! I’ve never felt anything so soft in all my life. I shape my hands into a little bowl, a small nest, and lift them to my mouth. I give the birdie a light kiss. So soft! So blue, that tiny head! The creature stirs, shivers a little. It startles me, but I hold my hands firmly together.
“Put him in here. Very carefully.” Papa has brought a cardboard box from his study, with an old scarf lining the bottom.
I gently lower my cupped hands till they touch the bottom of the box, then slowly pull them apart.
“Well done. And now we’ll go and buy him some food.” He takes me by the hand. Olive and Kings and Duddie all go to school and Mama won’t let me go there yet, but now I’m in luck. At last, I’m the lucky one!