The Liverpool-born poet Richard Le Gallienne wrote: “I meant to do my work today / But a brown bird sang in the apple tree.” These words are very dear to me, as Fairy Hill Croft here in Galloway is full of things to turn the head, and with snow, rain, high winds and a couple of -10C days leading up to Christmas, life has been busy.
The badger clans I wrote about in September have since then dug a total of 47 latrines down the lane and near my wood shed. Most of the badgers hit their target, but a few missed the hole completely, and not one backfilled. Clearly they need potty training. With my white beard developing nicely, this Santa also rescued a roe deer trapped in a fence, tripped over a squat woodcock (such clever camouflage), watched 200 Holsteins navigate the milking parlour, and disturbed three blue tits that were roosting in a deserted house martin’s nest. A new tick for me.
Most memorable was the thousand or so rooks that lifted on the top field this week – think Hitchcock – sunlight picking out their characteristic baggy trousers, grey ceres and the bootblack sheen of their feathers as they returned to the cowpats for a good feed.
My new year resolution is to identify which individuals rise first when they see me. A tough task when faced with a swirling black snowglobe in an instant. The rooks, well-dressed parliamentarians strutting their stuff, have a complex hierarchy of bosses and lackeys. Older birds are responsible for the majority of nest building, breeding and parenting, but it is thought that they whip subordinates into action to help raise the young, leading by example in foraging, defence of territory and other behaviours.
At this stage of the year, with nesting duty imminent, some of the yearlings still try to obtain food from their adults, dropping their wings and opening their gapes, but are given short shrift, admonished and even pecked.
Living among the birds, I am rewarded with close encounters, like the single rook that purred almost like a cat. He caught sight of me and offered a regular caw before joining another group on the electricity wires. As my one-time neighbour Robert Burns wrote: “Gie me ae spark o’ nature’s fire / That’s a’ the learning I desire.”
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