All gob and cheep, the blackbird chicks see beyond the nest. Shadowy figures, other birds, dogs, squirrels, rain, shine, wind, voices, traffic … the next phase will be to launch themselves into all this. If they do, all hell will break loose.
It does. It feels like ages since the blackbirds began building a nest in the big Fatsia plant next to the sitting room window. What began as a discreet cup in the fork of branches became a cornet of stick and grass stem thatch, long enough to support a larger nest bowl. The evergreen hands of Fatsia leaves hid the nest but its construction and the shifts of parent birds sitting on the eggs could be seen from the window. How many eggs were laid is unknown but the parents were constantly bringing worms back, at first for each other, then for the hatchlings. Sometimes in the early morning and late evening, the male would perch on a tree top; he rarely sang and would make mostly soft, contact calls.
In recent days, the chicks became more vocal and two were seen with wide gapes and glinting eyes, shuffling half-wings and fidgeting in the nest. Today they’re out. The parent birds are trying to keep them safe, feed and hide them. The female acts as decoy to distract attention; the male dives along the hedge to deter anything that may approach where they’re hiding in dead leaves under shrubs.
Maybe the chicks won’t make it through the night. There are so many forces ranged against them; natural dangers from predation are bad enough without adding a climate emergency and habitat loss. So many trees and hedges have been cut down this nesting season with impunity by people who know better and belong to organisations with codes of practice not worth the paper they’re written on.
To have been born at all in this place at this time when so many millions of birds perish through casual ecocide is miraculous. Environmental justice is not just about the survival of species, it’s about care for these birds, right here and now, and to see them is such a privilege. In the dark hedge, there is a tiny cheep and a fierce hope.
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