A - Z Challenge - M: Murmuration

We went to see a murmuration of starlings. You know, the thing where a vast number of starlings collect in the air in one place and swoop and dance about in wonderful formation at dusk before settling to roost in trees? Also known as flocking (but that doesn't begin with M). Well, we went to see one.

A good friend of ours, a lifelong birdwatcher, nature lover, tree expert and all-round knowledgeable soul had good intel that starlings were doing their thing at this particular location at this particular time, and so we layered up well, laced up the walking boots (well, laced up the boots first in my case as I'm finding that it's increasingly difficult to reach my boots when I'm bundled up) and we climbed in the car full of expectation. 

We were there, but the starlings turned out not to be. Actually, that's not true - a few turned up ('Oh look! Here they are!') but were clearly either lost or discouraged by the absence of the Main Flock and went to bed early, and unspectacularly. Just enough to cause a short-lived ripple of excitement. 

Or not.

We stood in a field  in the Derbyshire countryside at dusk, on a February evening, in barely above zero degrees with only half a bag of mint imperials between us for sustenance, and the birds didn't show up. But you know what? It was fun. 

We walked up and down a bit. We stamped our feet and fumbled with mint imperials in thick gloves. We discussed which trees were which and saw a rabbit (or was it a hare? No, it was a biggish rabbit). We made up stories about abandoned farm buildings and secret drug rings and us on a hillside with binoculars.   We found a camera lens cap on the ground and decided it was definitely encouraging evidence that we were in the right place. We shared ideas about what we would do if we decided to do One New Thing each month that we had never done before. We chatted briefly with a fellow murmuration-hopeful who had seen a wondrous display only days previously! It was marvellous! Bad luck that when we turn out they have a day off. 

We trudged back down the path while we could no longer feel our feet and I did my best to climb into the car with knees that didn't want to bend, without muddying the white upholstery. Apparently the front seats are heated, but my husband had bagged the passenger seat. Still, I had the 'perials*. 

Home before we knew it and our friend was apologetic that it had been a wasted trip. But it hadn't been. 

We did something different. Speaking of 'One New Thing', I've never been to look at a murmuration before though I've seen them on Countryfile and often said that it's something I'd like to do. I'd like to see a murmuration one day. Maybe to see one you have to go and not see one quite a few times first. I gather it's bit like that in the birdwatching world**. 

We spent a happy couple of hours doing something. The last few years have been pretty awful and we haven't really done very much, so it was unusual. It was good to look outside for a while - outside ourselves and physically outside, despite the cold and the mud and the barren, bird-free landscape. It may not have been much but it was something, and something is better than nothing, and it's been nothing for quite some time. 

So I call that a win. 

*    When I was a kid, I thought these little round sweets that my mum always had (to aid digestion) were called Mintim Perials. So in our house they are still 'perials. 

**  Though my very limited experience of birdwatching has been different. When I was 17 I went out with a keen birdwatcher who invited me to come with him to look for nightjars in Clumber Park. (This was with the local chapter of the birdwatching society of which he was a member, before you see euphemisms everywhere.) We went, we sat in some bushes for hours on end and yes, a nightjar gamely turned up. It was summer, so not cold. Job done! Did it give me a taste for birdwatching? No.

Keeping my eyes on you

'Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.'
1 Peter 5:8 (NIV 1984)

Lord, there was a bird in the garden.

A blackbird. And you know how much I like blackbirds. He was on the bird table, pecking at crumbs from the stale ginger cake that I put out earlier that the jackdaws had in minutes. He bimbled around for a little bit and then started examining the floor around the base of the tree. I thought he was after more crumbs but it turned out he was fancying a bit of protein. He was peckish. Ha ha. 

It's a dank, damp sort of day today and the ground is wet. Particularly down there at the bottom of the garden where it tends to be sort of boggy. The turf must be soft and Blackbird must have had an inkling.

He stood very still with his head on one side. Then he started pecking the ground with his little orange beak. He got one. It wasn't about to give up easily - if worms have claws (which I know they don't) then it had dug them in properly. The worm had other plans from those of Blackbird; he didn't want to be someone's lunch. He was holding on with his bottom half. He stretched and he stretched but he wasn't coming out of the floor without a fight. 

Meanwhile, behind the lilac sat one of the neighbour's cats. A beautiful pale grey tabby with a white front; a feminine little feline, but lethal nonetheless. She sat with her chin low to the ground as Blackbird struggled with his reluctant snack. Tabby watched, and shifted position slightly. Never took her eyes from Blackbird. 

Also featuring in this debacle was Stumpy. Stumpy is also one of the neighbour's cats, so called because he has only half a tail. He's a big, muscular dark grey cat who lumbers around the place where the other cats stalk, or tiptoe or dart. Don't get me wrong, Stumpy can move quickly when he wants to, but he seems to think that as the Alpha Male he is more entitled to strut nonchalantly. He has battle scars; a damaged ear as well as the amputated tail - he is not to be messed with. Today Stumpy was behind the lavender, also with a beady eye on hungry Blackbird.

Still struggling with his worm, Blackbird was oblivious to the onlookers. He pulled and he twisted and he stopped for a better grip on his squirming prey. He was concentrating hard. This meal was not going to get away. Tabby shifted again and the lowest leaves on the lilac shook a little. Blackbird carried on hauling at his worm. All the other birds in the garden had fled, and indeed someone else was squawking that repeated, insistent bird-squawk to try to warn everyone away. There are cats. Watch out, there are cats.

Blackbird took no notice. I approached the kitchen window to look. Tabby seemed to be limbering up for a sprint/pounce/capture sequence but Stumpy was closer. Closer and heavier and, to my mind, more sinister. He was biding his time. My hand was on the door knob. I like blackbirds.

Blackbird: tug, tug.
Tabby: back end wiggling from side to side, preparing to strike.
Stumpy: unblinking stare.

Double jeopardy. The tension...

Out of the blue it happened. So quickly that I nearly missed it. GT came from nowhere. An orange streak.

GT (Ginger Tom) shot onto the scene from the side of the house where he must have been lurking near the forsythia. Whoosh. With the lithe athleticism of a young cat he covered the distance between the flowerbed and the bottom of the apple tree in a nanosecond.

Blackbird fluttered upwards in a flurry of panicked feathers, clipping branches as he ascended to relative safety. GT pretended he hadn't been aiming for Blackbird at all and darted off in a straight line under the conifers. Tabby turned tail and fled backwards through the lilac under the fence. Stumpy just rolled his eyes.

And here's what I thought: Blackbird nearly died. Well, I don't know if he nearly died or not, but it seemed a close thing to me. He took a big risk. He was so intent on what he was doing, what he wanted, that he overlooked lurking danger. I assume he didn't see the three cats, or if he did he is either braver or more stupid than I gave him credit for, so I conclude that he was concentrating so hard on his stomach that he didn't notice Death crouching in the undergrowth in three different directions.

I am often so absorbed with what I want - what I'm doing - what I'm set on achieving - that I miss so much that's around me. Good things and bad things. I am often so intent on My Thing that my hands are full and occupied when you are trying to give me good things. That's one way to look at it. The other thing that occurred to me is that it's the times when I am concentrating so completely on the wrong thing that I get blindsided by life. I want my worm so badly that I don't notice the predators. And if they get me, not only will I lose my worm, but quite possibly everything that matters.

'Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like the neighbour's cat looking for someone to devour.'1 Peter 5:8 (slightly adapted by me)

I thought the main dangers to Blackbird were Tabby and Stumpy, but it was GT, completely invisible to me that posed the biggest threat. I didn't even know he was there. He was the youngest, fastest and boldest of the trio. And, to the others' annoyance, the first to make his move. Quite often danger lurks where I don't expect it. It might pounce, it might stealthily creep up on me,  or it might career across the lawn like a ginger torpedo, but it's there and it's waiting for me to make a mistake. Waiting for me to be focused on the wrong thing. Waiting for me to take my eye off the ball. And then, like a cat with it's prey, it'll toy with me mercilessly for a while and then eat me.

Lord God, help me focus on you and not get bogged down with distractions. Help me to stay constant and not allow myself to get engrossed the irrelevant or indulgent when I need to keep my eyes on you.

'...and let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.'
Hebrews 12:1-2 NLT

It seems to me that it's all about being faithful. Keeping my eyes fixed on you so that those same eyes don't go roaming all over the place looking for something better, easier, quicker, less effort, painless. Once my gaze rests on one of those things then I tend to wander away from the safety that is where you are and enter into the dangerous territory of the neighbourhood cats, or the roaring lions, or the other guy. You know, him. The Enemy. He would have me far away from you. He would quite like it if I was so intent on one thing that I didn't see the trouble I was in. I don't think he even minds what it is, because such is the breadth of your generosity, if I focus exclusively on one thing in my life I would certainly be missing out on more of your blessings. He'd be delighted if I held still, determined to prevail with my own idea that I fail to look around me.

Blackbird was just doing what birds do. They catch worms and they sometimes fall prey to neighbourhood cats. It's not his fault, more his misfortune. Perhaps I've stretched this analogy further than it could be stretched (like the worm, hey?), but as I watched the scene unfold from my kitchen my head went on a little trip. I sympathised with Blackbird (all he wanted was a spot of lunch) but he should have kept his wits about him; been more alert. Then he could have avoided that monumental adrenalin rush to avoid being a meal himself.

(Do birds get adrenalin rushes? I must google it). *

Anyway.

Lord, help me keep my eyes on you. I don't want to be someone else's meal. I don't want to wander away from you and find myself struggling. I want to run with endurance the race that you have for me, not one of my own invention. Give me wisdom to know your mind. Give me discernment so that I can learn to tell the difference between your voice and that of my own ego. Give me patience to wait on your perfect timing instead of taking matters into my own hands and putting on the blinkers.

Thankyou for birds and cats and worms. Be close to Blackbird tonight, Lord. He'll be feeling a bit jittery.





*Yes, apparently they do. Their nervous system is built in a similar way to that of other vertebrates. Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs.

Singing my heart out

I'm having one of those lovely moments when I can see you in everything. 

I've just been out to the greenhouse to water my little baby plants before I get ready for bed and in the space of a day a little row of seedlings have poked their heads up. Little tiny radishes and lettuces and spring onions and tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers; all the little seedlings all looking pretty much the same until they develop their second pair of leaves and identify themselves. Of course I've got everything labelled in rows, because the order appeals to me and it's the only way I can do things - some might call it a smidge neurotic - but despite me, the seeds grow all on their own, because they're little living things.  Tiny little living things. From a dry, dead looking little brown pip in my hand, they turn into lush, green sprouts of new growth. Hopeful. 

I've got some poppy seeds to sow and they have to be among the smallest seeds that there are and yet they grow into something so arrestingly beautiful. If that doesn't point to you, I don't know what does. I love poppies. The big blowsy red and black ones and the papery pastel pink and purple ones; they are spectacular and yet the seeds are so tiny that it's hard to pick up just one with our big clumsy fingers. 

There was a blackbird sitting on the topmost branch of a conifer singing it's little heart out. It was in profile and I could see his beak opening and closing as he made this lovely happy sound. I checked on some plants that I bought and planted the other day and they're starting to settle in and spread out in the soil.  I love it when you look carefully at new plants and it's obvious that they're going to be ok in your soil, and that they've found the new environment comfy enough to start to spread out their roots. 

One of the big plants in my garden that died over the cold winter has been sitting, dead and twig-like in it's huge pot, waiting to be evicted so that I can reuse the plantpot sometime soon.  Recently I noticed that right at the bottom of the stems, almost in the soil, the plant is shooting again. There are small, bright green leaves among the old woody branches that are dry and dead. It's worth planting him back out somewhere and maybe he'll make it after all. A phoenix from the ashes. A little botanical resurrection!

I've been up to see the girls asleep in bed and to see if I can have a look at the lump on Katy's neck, about which she's getting increasingly protective.  She was lying on it, so I didn't manage to see it but I could touch it, and I think it's getting smaller.  I'm sure it's getting smaller.  Whether it'll go before the operation date I don't know, but I do know that you're looking after my little girl. She and her big sister both looked so small, so delicate, so innocent. So beautiful daughters.

I feel I am surrounded by wonderful things.  Surrounded by beauty and gifts and so many blessings that it's impossible to notice them all.  I want to thank you, Lord, for showing them to me. Thankyou for this marvellous world where tiny seeds wake into life and grow into enormous plants giving fruit and flowers. Thankyou that you give us a role to play sometimes so we can tend these little representatives of you. 

Thankyou for sunny days, green grass, watering cans and seedlings. Thankyou for flowers and birds and  blue sky and the sound of my girls laughing as they swing on the swing. Thankyou for this glass of wine, a picnic or a roast dinner. Thankyou for my family as we all drink coffee together in the garden on our new garden bench.  Thankyou that I can speak to you now and be assured that you are hearing me. Thankyou that this morning in church I could worship you openly without fear of someone coming to arrest me or hurt me for doing it. Thankyou that I am your daughter and you love me. 

I feel as if I might never stop if I start on the list of wonders that you have done and are doing in my life. Thankyou that you think I'm worthy of more work; that I might grow from a small dull-looking seed into a flower that blossoms.  Thankyou that you see my potential and know how to develop it in me. 

I want to sing of you like the blackbird on top of the tree, singing a beautiful song with joy and abandon. 

I want to spread my roots out wide and strong like the lavender just arrived from the garden centre. 

I want to send out fresh, strong new shoots each time you show me how to, no matter how devastating the winter before. 

I want to rest safe and child-like in your arms tonight  like my babies in their beds, secure in the knowledge that they are loved and cared for. 

So much to be thankful for. Such a skilful and imaginative Creator God you are. Help me see, Lord. I don't want to miss a thing.