Chinese proverb.
How appropriate on this sunny Easter Sunday. The birds are indeed tweeting like mad. Unlike me, who is finding Tweeting a little strenuous. I don't really want to tell everyone what colour my knickers are, so I restrict myself to quotes I find inspiring. Not quite Piers Morgan then!
Ah but I have the luxury of listening to the real birds sing.
The Swallows returned for the summer yesterday. We were sitting in the afternoon sun on our roof terrace and I noticed two small birds wheeling overhead. Squinting to get a clear view of their tail feathers, I deduced that they were House Martins, too pessimistic to imagine that they might be the real thing.
They landed on a nearby arial and we were able to study them at leisure: White breast, black face, blue black body and those distinctive, and hard to discern, elongated tail feathers. A Swallow!
I can’t tell you how excited I was to see them. They perched on the arial and proclaimed their arrival at the top of their voices. The sound - a series of short peeps followed by a noise similar to a Geiger Counter detecting radiation. I wondered if the location aided their communication - truly 21st Century Swallows making the most of technology.
Chris, never one to miss an opportunity to impart wisdom, used the Swallows' arrival to educate a young friend of ours, here for a prolonged visit from Texas.
"Did you know that Swallows spend 99% of their time on the wing?" he asked.
"They eat, sleep and mate on the wing, settling only to raise their chicks. Because of this, Swallows only have stumps for feet."
All of this said with great authority and absorbed conscientiously by our young friend.
The following day I was studying the Swallows as they came and went from their perch on the nearby arial. They looked secure enough - they certainly have excellent balance to be able to perch on wire on stumps. I couldn't resist my wifely fixation with facts - I had to Google it.
Sure enough, the truth is somewhere in between. Swallows have weak legs & feet, able only to grip thin wire and twigs.
How disappointing to have my Doubting Thomas persona proved right. The image of poor Swallows balancing carefully on stumps is now forever etched in my imagination - much preferable to the truth!
A lesson then, but in what? Perception? Enjoying the Now? Never letting the truth get in the way of a good story?!
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