What a scruffy little cutie. So far he has eaten only once from my hand but he seems to like hanging around.
After this he was preening just a foot or so further away while I stood there. The day before he'd been hopping from pot to branch to pot as I planted up some cuttings that I hope will not follow most of their predecessors into withered up death. This time, mock orange. The wayfaring tree, ginkgo, hazel and field maple all died.
Before Son of Bob showed up, Bob came and deigned to eat from my hand for the first time in weeks! Then another Junior Bob appeared. This one sleek and speckly with no sign of red on the breast, but a similar jaunty carriage and brave, bright eye.
Mrs B had been eating up the seeds and suet on the box as I stood there. So when another blackbird flew up, I thought it was her returning. She though had a yellow beak - this is a juvenile. Look carefully and you might see the tiny mouse as well.
As I listen to books recounting all the biodiversity in this place or that, I think how wonderful it would be to visit. How I'd love to see the charismatic mammals and brightly coloured birds. But then I think of flying and staring and people and binoculars and lists and poverty and time and cats and of being rooted.
Which reminds me, I am reading a book called Rooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. The review I have linked to is somewhat critical and I think that the criticism is warranted. It is, as the critic writes, a great summer book rather than a Great Book. But it does suggest to me the benefits of being-in-place.... my garden, returning to the copse, to Pitsford, to Devon, to Aulus. With rootedness comes responsibility...
It's good to hear about the B family ... but I didn't find the mouse yet.