Starlings are noisy and can never agree whose turn it is to go on the bird feeder. They square up to each other and squawk, "Come on then, if you think you're hard enough." They are all on the same side and would see off a pigeon in seconds but they just can't help squabbling among themselves.
It was a noisy day to try and sit in the garden reading a book. There was a children's party, that sounded like a thousand kids in a swimming pool, in one neighbour's garden. The smell of lighter fuel and burning sausages mixed with the foamy beer smell that followed the click and pop of a can being opened, gave away that people were watching football and the starlings were shouting.
I know that people enjoy and get (over)excited about football. They say things like, "We nearly had that," and blame the professional footballers for missing shots that they would me able to make with their eyes closed. They count their eggs before they've hatched. "It's coming home." It becomes personal. In fact, there seem to be an awful lot of starlings around.
The TV commentators, apparently think that people who choose to read a book instead of watching need to get a life. That makes me uncomfortable because I'm sure you can read a book and like football and I'm sure you can have a life and not like football. You can also be patriotic and not like football.
Personally, I probably do need to get a life. I'm not sure that running away from tigers, fighting elephants and watching birds counts but even if I wanted to I couldn't watch football at the moment. It's just too noisy. Unfortunately, my brand of bonkers comes with a noise limit. This proved to be a small problem, as I could hear the game in glorious octophonic sound, with the accompanying shouting.
I thought England had lost. There were two shouts of delight and four angry groans. The bird feeder was swamped and someone shouted, "Starling, you're a f***in' w***er!" I had to agree but the starlings couldn't decide which one of them they were talking about.
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