The Predator’s World is Silent
Outside is mob rule and mayhem. I awake each morning to a public demonstration of collective power as birds hurry around like mad things, busy with their dark logistics. There are bees, bloated and drunken, the horse stares at me, and a violent budding now afflicts every bush and branch. It rained last night, so a carpet of menacing purple flowers has emerged from the grass. I don't know when it will end, but the flowers are already multicoloured and expanding.
I put out food for the hedgehog – a peace offering if you will – but the thing rushes past as if motorised and the cat thieves the rest. I recently saw a 'Hedgehog House' for sale on e-Bay that claimed to be 'Cat-Proof' and suitable for the 'Forward-Thinking Hog.' I may look into this.
Each day I confront an intimidating gang of Jackdaws – they always have a sentinel perched on the phone lines to cry out and warn the others when you approach – and a variety of rotund Robins so tough the wind rolls them over and they just get up again. Ferns are unfolding, so they catch the wind and nod, and as the sunlight strikes the waiting trees, they boast their billowing plumage, reaching up and above me. Two Blackbirds fight over something disgusting, and there are foxes also; at least one (sleek) rat – a scout perhaps – and busloads of idiot bugs that bang against the light like addicts. I cannot sleep. Politics rages all around me.
When it's just too much, beyond reasonable human tolerance, I come blundering out in my dressing gown to let them have it – the whole disorderly rabble. I tell the ducks to stop messing about; I lecture the horse over the hedgerow, and I shout at the lambs to calm down as they bound around the field without reason (if you watch closely, it's their LEGS that do the bounding, with the lambs knowing little about it).
My words, of course, have no effect on this plebian assembly, and as for the birds, I must tell you, they do not listen and do whatever they please. Am convinced that some fly around for the sheer fun of it. Crows mob buzzards, Wagtails flirt, and there is a strange crowd of fluttering brown miniatures that travel together, never stop chattering and eventually panic one other into moving on.
The only thing that shuts everyone up is the arrival of the Sparrow Hawk – when, quite suddenly, no one has anything to say. He preens himself (his is a silent world) and looks around with disdain. Then he lazily flaps away with all the confidence of the tyrant. But right away the rabble reconvenes, talking about it, carrying on and filling the air with sound and movement. Am telling you, this lot may look good, but they're opportunistic and only befriend you when it suits them.
In the evening, the Magpie with the white knee and outrageous political views visits me, and I am often required to confront her with the facts. The 'Forward-Thinking Hogs' arrive at ten and the second shift at two. Around four, the neighbours-from-hell are at it again, shouting at each other from the treetops. Once awakened, I walk. I have to. Down a straight lane of blossom to the horizon, then a small bridge where water rushes over tumbling green. Now the leaves are fingered by shadows and beyond, the hills appear. I circle back through the sloping field, the one with the cows who usually ignore me as I mumble at them under my breath, yet sometimes follow insistently, passively pressing – like people filming a terrible accident on their phones. I admonish them and wave my finger while they chew and take a step forward, watching me. Once home, it's the usual round of conflict resolution, international negotiation, boundary setting and outrage management.
Nature's teeming belittles me, and sometimes when it rains, I weep at its complexity. Yet I am honoured – as their ultimate predator and Lord of their destruction – to be still granted access to their noise.