Suspend Belief and don't Blink
[Having introduced my favourite tit - a blue tit (chickadee) called Feisty...]
By the time I’d befriended the shy but proud male pheasant I had the four most common English titmice regularly visiting the feeder: coal tit, marsh tit, blue tit and great tit.
All but Feisty ignored the resplendent and iridescently feathered game bird feasting on the grains dislodged from the feeder.
The antics in The Aviary had added an extra habit to my morning routine. Before attacking my daily ‘Q.T’ (Quiet Time) or ‘Morning Pages’, I now enjoyed a half hour or so bird-watching session over my coffee.
My subjects appeared to enjoy the attention (and their free food).
Was it a response from Feisty sensing favouritism that he rewarded me with something every bit as remarkable as my adventure with Intrepidina? Probably not, and I would be guilty of anthropomorphising. It’s inevitable in this situation.
Please suspend your scepticism… it will all be over in the blink of an eye and only happened the once.
Nevertheless, the memory winks every time I spy a blue tit or see a slide in a child’s playground.
Feisty slid down the back of Colchis, the cock pheasant.
Slid down and flew up and away.
I don’t blame him. If I was that small, I’d want to slide down that shiny feathered curve too.
Naturally it prompted a poetical and Feisty became an Amazing Tit.
Amazing Tit
The pheasant was eating the robin’s mealy worms: normal
The tits on the feeder were having a big fat ball or four
The robin was attempting not to get under the pheasant’s feet: routine
When something happened which I’ve never seen…
The smallest blue tit which I’ve nicknamed Feisty
Swooped from the feeder using the pheasant’s copper back
As a slide!
Had a particle of fat ball dropped there? Doubt it.
Or could it be he couldn’t resist the ride?
You decide.
As for Mr P the pheasant? He barely moved, which is why I wondered if I could believe my eyes.
But the image is too bizarre to be forgettable.
Unsurprisingly, Feisty takes us to his friends the pheasants. Their examples provided a number of life lessons, but no scrapes, although that’s what pheasants live in…
#chickadees #amazing #nature