Of Mice and Sparrows

Yesterday I wrote about two small birds that I wondered if they were rifleman. (Should this be riflemen?). The more I researched the more I think I was wrong. Apparently rifleman rarely fly and hug the bole and branches of a tree as they search for food. The birds I saw flew quite well.

They were probably grey warblers. I heard them all summer but to the best of my knowledge did not see them. They have a lovely call. I presume the present cold weather drives them to new food sources.

When I was a boy I often found their abandoned nests – such cosy comfortable things. But despite looking I never found any with eggs or even more exciting a shining cuckoo fledgling. It always seemed unfair the idea of those little birds feeding that large interloper. .

These thoughts reminded me of a poem which amused me:

OF MICE AND SPARROWS

God said to the mouse,
`Grow feathers and become a bird;
or was it the reverse
the consequences of which
I celebrate in verse?
Today I saw two of them
and a third,
and none at all resembled a bird.

God must have been bored,
and what may have started
in his mind as a doodle
became something identifiable –
a mouse,
and a tree-climbing mouse at that,
I first mistook for a bird.

Today, my dear, 1 had intended
to write a poem for you
about sparrows whose antics
we both enjoy, but seeing mice masquerading
as birds,
I have to admit
I am lost for words.

Alistair Campbell