Turdus Pilaris

 If you were to ask me why I've not made a snowman in my garden, my answer might be, "Turdus Pilaris," which I would have thought would be Latin for the perils of owning a dog.  You never know what might be under that crisp white snow.  However, Turdus Pilaris is actually the Latin name of a bird I saw yesterday.

I had been out for an early morning walk, enjoying the snow and taking photos at dawn.  I've been spending far too much time in my head and I thought a walk would help.  I'm still imagining the life of Emily the Murderer and as I was walking I was thinking about the town as it would have been in 1882. I walked up Fambridge Road and tried to imagine Fair Field, that held the twice annual fairs, selling livestock and being a place for petty crime and frivolity. I would have been huge, stretching all the way from the back of the White Hart to Warwick Drive, across to Princes Road and up to the back of America Square.  As I walked down Wantz Road I started to wonder where Emily and William had met.  They would have moved in different social circles and so I've been trying to get the story right.  Walking always helps when the words don't flow onto the page the way you hope they will.

I was nearly home and slowed my walking to look at the sparrows in the hedge, who would suddenly fly like little missiles and land in pairs in the snow for a spot of chilly bird sex.  I was surprised at how many birds were around; the cold grey skies and regular falls of snow didn't seem to bother them at all.

Then I saw a bird I didn't recognise sitting in a tree looking at me.  

"Hello," I said.

I think its always prudent to be polite to birds just in case they are psychopomps.  

He looked at me and said nothing.

"Who are you?" I asked.

Still, he said nothing.

He was quite a big bird but I didn't know what he was.  I took a photo and walked on and he flew straight up in the air and landed in the laurel bush that I had reached.  I took some more photos, while he posed.

When I got home I tried to look him up.  The trouble with bird identification books is that if you don't know what the bird is then you don't know where to look and somehow all birds look the same in drawings.  I tried the RSPB app, which told me it was a juvenile blackbird.  I knew that wasn't right because it was too big and I'd seen those before.  So I resorted to Twitter.  I've never had so much interest in a tweet and although I shouldn't be surprised that something named after the sound a bird makes should be full of people who know about birds, I was.

It wasn't long before the answer appeared.  It was a Fieldfare, which is a winter visitor from Sweden and likes apples.  Apparently, they are quite rare birds to see as they don't sit still very often.  I can only think that I was meant to see him.

Emily and William met at Fair Field.  A bird told me.