hunting camera arms
The song of robin (Erithacus rubecula)
When Nature gives you exactly what you want - this is 'synchronicity' in action. I was completing a illustrated version of one of the ebooks My "Adventure of Arthur 'and was short of some good pictures of a Robin - a sort of' guide ' in this story - called 'Follow the Robin'. I had used a scanned Christmas card 'with a pinch' for this image and - well just type of the corrupted e-book. With this in the back of my mind I out on a walk with my camera.
I went to a location downstream where there are no buildings, no sound of cars, no people. It is a place "outside time", where you can shift between centuries and will not be there any time that it has essentially remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Since I went to the Cornish eclipse of 2000 was one of my eye 'special places'. The river Fowey forks together and then starts right here to open in St. sift Pool and the valley floor is separated by mature mixed forest on all sides.
After taking a few pictures of 'light sparkling the river ", I closed my eyes to take in the sounds - wind in the trees, the distant sounds of farm animals, the subtle and playful sounds of water. After a few minutes heard I flapping behind me - and opened my eyes to see a Robin on top of my camera bag, not even 18 inches away. He stared at me, held the head, and flew away to a nearby fantastic song pour out his tree just above my head. I saw another, smaller, hopping over the neighborhood, shyer than her partner.
I took the camera from the bag and hung it around my neck. The little bird was just within zoom range and I got a few shots of the singing. "How lucky am I? I thought. Only the pictures I need. After a few minutes the bird stopped its beautiful song, and flew away to another tree near where it started. cackle "A kind of 'tick tick' noise like a reel fisherman. Robins make this kind of noise sometimes. I wish I had some seeds or breadcrumbs to lure it closer to, but I had no food with me. I clocked back to my best ability, adapted to its sounds as good as I could without Robin beak or larynx (they larynxes?)
When he clocked a time, I have. Than two times. Then three times, to change the intervals between the bird and cluck. He jumped closer and closer. Looking at me from different positions. And then flew over and actually stood on my knee. Very carefully I lifted the camera and turned it on, hoping the little electronic sounds would not scare it. It was wonderful and I got a close-up.
But then it started "posing". You're not going to believe, but moved his head around like a top model - giving me angles of left and right and front, stay there on my knee for what seemed like a few minutes. I know it sounds like a "anthromorphic projection" (where people invest animals and nature with their own "motivation", which really annoys me sometimes) - But is really what it seemed. It's like this Robin really wanted to be published - and now it is!
Even days later I feel so rewarded with this intimate connection with a wild animal - and I had to share with you.
So I have to go back with a gift for this friendly Robin and his mate. I wondered what do Robins eat and stuff. What would a good gift for this friendly animal, perhaps the most loved of all birds with its sweet, but slightly melancholy song?
I Dug Out 'British breeding birds', My 1910 edition by W. Percival Westell (author of "Nature Stalking for Boys"). This bird suffers from common names: Bobby, Bob, Bobrobin, Brow-Rhuddyn (Welsh), Robinet, Ruddock and Tommi-Liden among them. WP Westell tells me they eat worms, earwigs, moths, larvae, spiders, daddy-long-legs and scraps will take in the winter. They make their nests of moss, dead leaves, stems of plants with a neat lining of roots, hair, or wool.
There is my answer. Some soft, washed wool for Robin to his nest for the next bread line - but not red!
Later I returned.
I heard the Robin way on the tree and could not seem to attract by "chatter". So I tried to contact the bird a technique I had read about you in a picture in mind of an animal through his third eye. I sent him pictures a nest with five eggs, all cozy with the newly cut pieces of woolly sweater I had with me.
Within one minutes I heard the buzzing of the wings and Robin was at the end of the bench where I Sat I slowly raised my arm and let one of the wool pieces down near the bird. There was no communication as such, but I got a strong impression I was scolded. Here is a rough translation of what I think the bird replied:
"Take yer stupid peices of wool home with you, there is the last thing we need here around. The moss here is fantastic, it is soft, there is a lot and has much better quality than tap water they soggy pieces of cloth. I like the damp will rot my chicks the nest. Fat lot you know. If you really want to make friends and go get me some fat juicy worms and bring here. "
I checked the moss. The clean air here, there is very much moss and lichen for lining nests. It was certainly much less likely to wet than my wool. Sufficiently chastised me back home. I saw several Robins on the way home, they species have conspicuously landing in a nearby tree and started to sing as I walked by - or was it the same Robin?
But later, in a mornings gardening with my son, I took him to get some worms and store them for an expedition to the tame Robin that afternoon. The goal was to get Robin to take a worm from his hand, in his words would its cool.
We sat there for about 45 minutes, allowing Robin clucking noises but I could see his attention was wearing thin. He listened to the bird song and we are a pheasant, a number of other songs from Robin over the river, the cry of a buzzard exciting hunting and some other bird I could not find one that sounds like "Michupichu - Makes Michupichu '! We decided to 'set the worms free' and went into the wood behind us to find in non-saline soil above the highest tide mark and put them down where she could wriggle back into the earth.
It was when I saw the Robin, a high in the trees. Three Robins. I sat down next to the worms and stage whispered Will "Walk here and sit quietly. "But it was too late. Quick as a flash of bright red, the Robin swooped in and snapped one end of one of the worms, fluttering back-up to a nearby tree. Wills sat beside me and we each grabbed a worm and kept it off. The Robin flitted around from bush to bush, keeping an eye on Beady us at any time. Then flew from a bush, landed at the head of my son for a moment, and flew away to another.
It came closer when we extended our worms for the taking, but just then two large dogs ran through the bushes, breaking the moment. It was Mel with her daughters, Emily and Hazel, from walking the dogs. Wills was glad that some people his own age to participate to play and we went back to Mel's house for a cup of tea to find.
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