like the first bird
I've been watching the blackbirds in my garden; male, female and baby. All three rush around the lawn, searching for worms. The juvenile is learning the ropes from its parents. Soon the parents will stop feeding it, and it'll have to fly off and find its own territory. I sometimes see the male blackbird, on a high branch in the plane tree in the street outside, or sitting on top of the freshly trimmed hedge that divides street from garden. I do hear him singing some evenings, a loud, melodious, full throated song, designed to carry through the thick woodlands, wherein these birds used to live. Thick woodlands are no longer as common as they were, so my blackbird lives in a hedged around garden, and sings a song that is now a little extra for his surroundings. It's said to be good luck if a blackbird nests near your house. And in Celtic mythology a blackbird is believed to be one of the three oldest animals in creation, the first bird. The other two creatures are the stag and the trout.
I've been watching the blackbirds because I've been mulling over the idea of writing something about them, or that includes them, or revolves around them. I like the idea I've got in mind but I can't quite work it up into a story at the moment. So I spend time watching the birds, and tell myself it's research.
I've uploaded here a short movie I took of another male blackbird in another garden that I was working in at the time. This bird was very bold and came quite close, as you can see. He had hopes that my digging might turn up a worm for him.
I love blackbirds. I think the charcoal black of the male's feathers, contrasting with the gold rimmed eye, and beak are just gorgeous.
I went looking for musical references to blackbirds, not a deep dive, just a quick dip. Lennon and McCartney wrote a song called 'Blackbird' though it's not about blackbirds. Children's author Eleanor Farjeon put words to a hymn, way back, that we know as Morning Has Broken (a hit record for Cat Stevens in the early 1970s) with the line 'Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.' Both Beyonce, and the band Linkin Park have songs titled 'Blackbird', though I've not listened to either. Then of course there is the nursery rhyme 'Sing a Song of Sixpence', wherein four and twenty hapless blackbirds get baked in a pie, though they do come back to life to sing for the king. But my favourite appearance of my favourite bird is on Kate Bush's album 'Aerial'. Blackbird song is heard in the track 'Aerial Tal', and the sound wave of a blackbird's song appears as the album's cover art. It's clever because at first glance it looks like a row of mountains, reflecting upon themselves as they project from the sea.
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