Wren
The sun shows up late these January mornings. Three weeks past the longest night and it still feels like the days quicken into the gloaming and struggle to rematerialise. My head feels grey and it's almost 8am by the time I rouse myself with coffee and shuffle blearily out the door. It’s raining.
At the boot of the car I change from slipped-on shoes to caked walking boots, tottering like a drunk on one foot. Changing at the boot of the car reminds me of childhood walks with my family. Before a walk my brothers and I would tarry at the car, muddling our socks, losing wellies, every trick in the book. This was, of course, in total contrast to the scene at walk’s end when we'd pile around the car, eager to be the first to fall into the scooped out dome of the boot to heel off our wellies, unpeel long socks and ball into the back seat for respite and warmth.
This morning I am heading to Duchess Pond to look at birds. On the way down a wren makes itself well-known by directing it’s call in my direction. It manages to look unruffled and decidedly cute whilst tic-tic-tic-ing me at full pelt. These little guys. I encounter two more on the path down, one by sight the other by sound. It's a wren day.
I saw my first wren two winters ago up here, in a bush near the entrance to the park. I had been putting together a playlist of Christmas and winter music and included Fairport Convention's version of The Cutty Wren. Cutty means small, but the wren is ‘King of Birds’, having tricked its way to winning highest flyer by hitching a lift on the back of an eagle. The Cutty Wren is about the sacrificial killing of a wren as a substitute for the Year King, though I’m not entirely sure what the Year King is. This ritual usually took place on boxing day also known as St. Stephen's Day, or Wren Day. Because I am mesmerised by the ancient, I endow this totemic winter bird – actually to be seen all year round – with magical powers and treat it with requisite sacred respect. The wren always brings a smile to my face, this ground-hugging, tiny core of strength and soul that warms even the coldest and bleakest part of the year.
Speaking of bleak, the world is the definition of this morning. The dampness has darkened the trees, which stand motionless under a slothful grey sky. Birds are the only things that move. Besides the wrens, I seem to be in magpie territory. I slip and slide my way down the path, setting off black and white alarm calls at regular intervals as I move from one magpie’s radar range to the next. The magpie too is a beautiful bird, which is easy to forget due to its commonness and the godawful harshness of its call. You really need to get up close for full effect of this exotic thing; the bluebottle wings and tail like the inside of Merlin's cosmos-themed cloak. Eventually the magpie cackle is broken by a thrush trebuchet-ing a tuneful projectile of song into the morning mist.
The pond is quiet, surface softly pocked with rain drops. Toast coloured reeds and bullrushes perforate the water’s edge. A swan glides by and I timeslip into a pre-Raphaelite vision of Arthurian legend; a misplaced, wet amateur ornithologist in a nobler world of sword, water, mist, knights and ladies either drowned for love, or providing swords in lakes... Back in the here and now there is only water and hardly a human soul in sight. I'm always amazed at how easily people are put off by a little rain. The drops clip clip in the reeds while a band of mixed tits follow a small flock of redwings around the circular route of trees surrounding the water. An empty packet of Quavers is lodged in a tree, signposting something, I'm not quite sure what. In the undergrowth a blackbird turns over damp leaf litter, chucking it left and right like a child searching through a collapsed pillow fort for the precious toy buried at the bottom. On the island in the pond’s middle, a heron shelters under a willow tree. She has wrapped herself in her wings, the colour of bird shit, and she looks forlorn in the extreme. I take some photos through the binoculars. She doesn't improve her pose. Doubling-back I unseat a rabbit that hops away into a bush. It's 9am and I should really be starting my work, but really I'd like to hide out here all day long watching the moorhens that spill from every place I put my feet, and in the company of the lady of the lake who hides herself forlornly under her cape of bird shit grey. On my way out of the pond enclosure a robin flops up into a bush in front of me puffing his red chest. "Hey" I say. He stays for a photo, posing a little. Fluffy little tyke.
Finally, I am back on the tarmac track that follows the Grade II listed wall three men spent a couple summers fixing and extending. A close-by crow on the rendered top watches me warily, bends it knees, crouching, poised for a quick takeoff should I prove unsavoury. When he realises I am in fact a harmless lover of birds, all his ready energy dissipates anticlimactically in a tiny embarrassed hop to his right. I amble wistfully past the bush where I saw my first wren, King of the Birds, and now happily well-protected by law from ritual sacrifice. Through the gate, back into the world. Still no one in sight.
“O where are you going?” said Milder to Maulder
“O we may not tell you,” said Festle to Foes
“We're off to the woods,” said John the Red Nose“What will you do there?” said Milder to Maulder
“O we may not tell you,” said Festle to Foes
“We'll hunt the Cutty Wren,” said John the Red Nose