This little guy just flew into my patio doors as I was having my morning tea. Scout is sitting watching him recover, doubtless wishing him well. It’s been about 20 minutes now, and he’s moved from stunned, dazed, and splayed on the top step; to stunned, confused, and upright on the middle step; to sore, walking, and cautious on the patio. He’s a blackbird, even though he is brown. I assumed, based on my now vast knowledge that he was a female (female blackbirds are brown) or possibly even a young starling, but The Orkney Book of Birds, Pocket Edition, assures me that he is a juvenile blackbird (turdus merula).
As you can see from my knowledgeable analysis above, I have become a bit of a birdwatcher here. It’s practically impossible not to be. At home I did like watching the birds in my yard and my neighbourhood, and was particularly fond of the great blue heron in our pond, as well as last year’s common tern. But here, well, the skies are just full of them (duh) and as many of them are different from home, it’s hard not to start trying to identify them. I even bought the aforementioned Orkney Book of Birds. Obviously the puffins were a big deal, and LL took to calling the massive rookery at the end of my street the Forest of Doom due to the sheer number of crows (excuse me, rooks and jackdaws as locals have corrected me – but I have made a point of not correcting them when they speak of Canadian Geese – no one likes a know-it-all).
I’m enjoying all my sightings in the back garden, or my walks along the shore, or hiking in the hills. But I will never be a twitcher. There are almost as many twitchers scouring the islands as there are cruise-ship tourists scouring the local shops. But the massive binoculars look heavy, the attire is just not moi, and you will never catch me hunched down in a boggy blind waiting for a sighting of a Bean Goose or a Long-tailed Tit.
*As I am typing this, my little kamikaze buddy has hopped off into the grass and is now hidden up in the leaves of my laburnum tree.
