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May 07, 2005
The Circle of Life
Littleone named our new guest Bertie after the bird in her Zigby books. Sadly he did not make it through the night. I knew all along that he had a damaged wing and that he would probably never be able to fly but throughout the day I held out hope that maybe we would be able to build some sort of hutch and look after him. I guess it wouldn’t have been much of a life but we would have tried.
Littleone and I learned a lot from his short time with us. Before yesterday I called myself a bird lover but I had never taken much notice of starlings, I thought they were so common and widespread that they almost passed me by. To be honest half the time I was getting them confused with Blackbirds.
Yesterday I had a chance to study the bird in close proximity. I had barely noticed before but the Starling is not black at all, depending on the light his feathers are tinged with a whole range of blues and greens, in some lights his chest even looked amethyst.
Naturally we went to the RSPB website and found out all we could about starlings. Apparently they live in large flocks, which made me wonder if he was lonely, so I spent the afternoon lying on my stomach chatting away to him. We even sang him songs too, yes he was quite partial to our softer rendition of Road to Amarillo. According to the RSPB site starlings are good impersonators;
‘Starlings are outstanding mimics, and incorporate accurate copies of sounds of other birds, frogs and mammals, and even of mechanical sounds into their song.’
Which created a fantastic vision in my mind of Bertie being released back into the wild singing ‘Sha la-la la-la-la etc..’
I think he enjoyed our company, I am amazed at how many facial expressions a bird can portray. He would turn his head towards us and cock his head to one side, blink in all the right places, he even had a way of flattening his forehead which I thought was something similar to the way in which a human will raise their eyebrows in interest. I wonder if he studied us as much as we studied him.
He made it though the day, he was even eating a fair bit, which gave us hope but at 2am Mr. PE retuned from a night out to find him keeled over. He died in his hands wrapped in a tea towel.
I guess it wasn’t to be.
I had a whole story prepared for Littleone about how his friends came for him and he flew out the window, asking me to apologise that he never got the chance to say goodbye but come morning I decided that perhaps this was insulting her intelligence and that maybe she had that first valuable lesson to learn about love and loss. It broke my heart to see her cry but it was the right thing to do. I promised that we will take him to the park for a burial and that his body will be a part of the earth and will help the trees grow. I explained that it is all part of the Circle of Life, which meant that we then had to sit and sniffle over The Lion King. (I never saw myself as someone who would cry over an Elton John song but I guess there is a first time for everything)
It is no coincidence that Bertie came into our lives just as I needed a gentle reassurance about my vote. He let me know in his own head cocking way that every thing we do is important however insignificant it may appear to us at the time and yet we must do all we can. He also reminded me of how much we take for granted, next time I see a starling pecking for worms on the grass I will remember Bertie and pause for a moment to marvel at the way its feathers catch the light of the sun.
So here’s to you Bertie bird wherever you may be.
Posted by purple elephant at May 7, 2005 08:56 AM