Missing them

I've been thinking about urban foxes who have developed more rounded heads and muzzles than rural foxes. We are cutifying them. As I was writing about it, I was condemning how we take videos and stick them on social media. I felt very self-righteous. And then, of course, I realised, doh, that is exactly what I have been doing for two years.

Maybe I deserve the absence of the robins. Maybe these flying people do not want to be commodified.

It's hard, though, not to see them. Hard to be merely an intruder in my garden. Hard not to want to be seen in my turn.

I watch for the birds I think I know: Mottled Breast, Rascal and Blessing. And, is this Tiptoe or a new one?

I watch adult robins harassed by youngsters. I watch robin fledglings chasing wrens. I listen to the young blackbird practicing his song. I hear the jays and the starlings. I attend to the tits.

And they all avoid me.

Is this how it is meant to be?