Birds

I love the morning light here in Petworth. I have a ring side seat every day, sitting as I do in our turret overlooking the main square. The clock on the town hall is my time-keeper, the gold leaf hands passing over the wedgewood blue face, slowly illuminated by the rising sun.

Living in a tall house, we have the advantage of a bird’s eye view. We share our space with jackdaws and pigeons, sparrows and house martins. It is a bird’s world up here. I watch them swooping and nesting, feeding and fledging. I feel priviledged to share their space.

I love birds - they’re full of character and I delight in their presence. When a few summers back we erected a bird feeder on our roof terrace, our first guest was a green woodpecker.  I haven’t seen him since, but I was touched that Woody had welcomed us - that being my husband’s nickname of old.

I had to move the feeder twice due to the clumsy attempts of the local pigeons to gorge themselves. I couldn’t work out why my little conifers beneath were flattened until I spied a fat pigeon squatting patiently below the feeder awaiting his turn.

But this was nothing compared to my husband’s pigeon experience. Chris’s office is in the building opposite our house and looks directly onto our roof terrace. One windy day he looked up from his accounting to see a pigeon land in a most ungainly fashion on the weather vane that tops off our roof. 

As the pigeon scrabbled for a foothold, the wind caught the weather vane and sent it spinning round. The pigeon started to flap his wings, trying to maintain his balance. The faster he flapped, the faster the arm went round, sending him in ever increasing circles,  until he tumbled off and rolled down the roof, disappearing from sight.

Anyone who knows Chris can imagine his retelling of this story, complete with actions and sound effects. I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants!