Thursday 20^th January (Four Birds)

Mr. Kite looked out of his bedroom windows to see the sun rising above the Wrekin. Now recently this has happened on many occasions but this is not always the case; often Mr. Kites looks out of his bedroom window to see rain, snow, wind or just dull cloud.

Today Mr. Kite has a confession; he may be a birder on a bike but he sometimes leaves Salop, a name he likes for Shropshire, and goes birding elsewhere. Of course he could cycle elsewhere but he has a holiday home with four wheels and a bike rack. So this afternoon Mr. Kite was taking Mrs. Kite, and his bike, traveling. Mr. and Mrs. Kite would sit in the comfortable front seats whilst the beast would be strapped to the back of the holiday home in the dirty cold slipstream.

But before the holiday began Mr. Kite had a few hours to spare so he looked out of the kitchen windows bird watching. Wood pigeons often sit in the trees in Mr. Kites garden or walk on his green lawn. Looking out of the windows he could see two pigeons sitting side by side on the branch of a tree. Mr. Kite thought that he ought to name the birds that inhabit his garden so that he could learn their individual characteristics. Looking at the two pigeons Mr. Kite assumed that one was a male and the other a female; a pair. So as pigeon starts with ‘P’ he thought that their names should also begin with ‘P’; Peter and Polly seemed appropriate. Looking at them sitting comfortable by each other with the odd coo and peck Mr. Kite wondered who was Peter and who was Polly. Fortunately for Mr. Kite they did turn around and show their front and back to him; the problem was that he could not tell the difference between them. These pigeons were identical so Mr. Kite had a problem. After another cup of coffee Mr. Kite decided that he needed to find a way to distinguish these pigeons.

Eventually it was time to leave and they left Shrewsbury and headed towards Bridgnorth, followed by Kidderminster, the M5 and other M roads until Bristol and ending up in Bath Chew Valley, Bishop Sutton near Bristol.

Darkness descended quickly as Mr. Kite arrived at the caravan site. With the temperature dropping and jack frost making his presence known Mr. Kite parked his holiday home turned on the heating and then did a little bird watching. Song thrush’s sang and blackbirds made all sorts of noises. Mr. Kite mentioned four birds; the first two were pigeons and the other two blackbirds. Why does Mr. Kite mention two blackbirds? These blackbirds were male, noisy and intent on fighting, pecking and being aggressive. Mr. Kite stood still as these two young men scraped one metre away. Ignoring Mr. Kite they grappled, turned each other onto their backs, retreated, attacked, pecked, chased, intimidated, and showed utter contempt for each other. Pecking indiscriminately, using their feet as claws, making unearthly noises they were in conflict for more than a minute. Suddenly they both flew away. Mr. Kite was astounded by the aggressive behaviour of these territorial birds. But that is nature. Mr. Kite was pleased to think that Mrs. Kite did not behave like this.

Anyway after the excitement of the journey, the blackbirds and the thought of a few days away Mr. Kite settled down to a tipple of Shepherd Neame Bishops Finger and Shepherd Neame Spitfire as a reminder of flying aggressive fighters. Cheers.