HAPPY WINGS: A HOUSE SPARROW'S TAKE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

You wake up. You feel great. Your feathers feel lush. Your beak's full of tasty.
Sunshiny! You feel all sunshiny!
You've got your happy wings on!
Your family's chattering inside the hedge.
You enjoy trips out to the feeders.
Those sunflower hearts, though!
Gourmet mealworms!

Aren't we blessed? The right to flutter! Freedom to soar!

Have you seen our eggs? Some have already cracked. Disaster, I thought! But you should see what came out! Fluffy, funny, downy darling nestlings! We did that! Aren't we clever? And lucky! And special! And unique!

Can't be doing with social media, fakery, trolls.
They try to crush your happy wings. You don't feel so great, so special, so blessed any more. It brings you down off your happy perch.
They say you're wrong, you're stupid, you're the wrong shape, born in the wrong nest, hang with wrong flock, fly with the wrong partner. The world's ending, the elite's still eliting. Your spirit sinks down into the tips of your claws.
Social seedier's better.

So I had a little preen under my wing.

Having a little preen under my wing

Then I looked in a puddle. Had a drink. Saw I was still wonderful me. Me with ripples.
The real world. My world. No malevolent meta-meddling here. Here the sun shines. The rain rains. The wind whoofles through your plumage. Always a song to sing. A chippy chirp to cheep. Or you can be quiet. Let all the other birds be birdy-licious in their own ways. Like a noisy dawn chorus of diversity and joy. Every colour of every rainbow. And some you can't see but feel in your feathers.

You have to keep an eye out for the birds of prey, but back home in their nest, they're just like me with a family to feed. Not an axe to grind. So I don't take it personally.

My happy wings are perfect for me. They don't fit anybody else.

Spring is busy being beautiful.
And so am I.

BIRDBATH ETIQUETTE

House Sparrow: *drums toes*

Blackbird: Splish, splash, I was taking a bath!

House Sparrow: *tries to look away as if he's not that bothered*

Blackbird: I'm forever blowing bubbles...

House Sparrow: Mate! Have a little word with yourself! You're holding up the bathroom queue!

Blackbird: You all right over there, Spadge?

House Sparrow: Wash under your armpits, then scarper, won't you?

Blackbird: Hang on! I've lost the soap!

House Sparrow: Whatever! I'll try the next garden!

Busy birds (and a very cheeky grey squirrel!)

Birds are full of the joys of spring now. Pairing up, gathering nesting material, shouting about how they are the best specimen on show! 

This morning a Goldfinch ventured closer than usual to the house. They often feed at a distance on the niger seeds in a hanging feeder under the fruit tree. Today, four of them were chasing each other up and down, feeding on the seeds of the lilac, flying up to the top of the aspen and sycamores, whizzing through willow and ash, twittering and giggling together. The one seen here came up as far as the pergola to enjoy the sunflower hearts!


Meanwhile, one of my cheeky grey squirrels came to try its luck with the different foods on offer. Here you can see it tucking into to the mixed seeds in a hanging feeder.


The starlings in these photos are enjoying the hopper newly topped up with suet and insect pellets.


House sparrows, both male and female, and a male blackbird can also be seen in these snaps, noisily helping themselves to all they need to be in optimum breeding condition.


I didn't manage to snap the collared dove this morning, but she was busy collecting thin twigs for her nest in a nearby conifer hedge. I'll try again another day.


Here's today's snaps, taken with a Nikon Coolpix 3700 3.2 mega pixel resolution 3x optical zoom-Nikkor lens, shooting through a Barr & Stroud Sahara 15-45 x 60 spotting scope on tripod: