The birds

There’s something strange going on with the birds round here. I think that word has spread amongst the bird population of what a great hunter I am, I know I haven’t caught anything yet but that’s not the point, I could have if I’d wanted too but I love birds and just like to play with them.

As the evenings have got lighter and warmer and the endless rain seems to have eased up a bit, the birds go to bed a bit later and mummy and my evening walkies is much more interesting. There’s so much more to listen to and keep me entertained with, I can hear all the birds in the bushes hopping around, flitting this way and that getting ready for bed, I can tell the big birds from the little birds as they all have their own unique sounds, there’s plenty to smell too, I can follow the trails of all the little animals that have been out and about overnight and if we head off down the road I can smell where the doggies have been on their walkies too, it’s a really exciting time.

The last week or so some of the birds have been showing off some unusual behaviour, it’s not something that I’ve heard before, I think they must be scared of me for some reason as they had all joined together in one big group to fly around and around, it’s like they’ve made one giant bird out of lots of little ones.

They made a different sound as they flew overhead and if I listened really closely I could hear all of their individual little wings flapping away but I had to really concentrate to hear that because there were so many that it changed their normal sound into something much bigger, louder and different altogether. It was like a loud swish, swish, swish as they flew around us. They flew all around our house and right over it too, when they were right overhead the swishing noises became really loud and the sound changed to more of a pffft, pffft, pffft each time they changed directions. When they flew right overhead it was really loud and mummy put her hood up coz she could hear the little splats as some of them pooped as they flew around! “Watch out Jen” she said, “Don’t open your mouth if you look up!” The sound came in waves and just when I thought they were going one way they would quickly change direction and go off somewhere else completely different to what I expected. “They’re showing off and dancing for us” said mummy “and the noise sounds like waves lapping on a beach” Well I wouldn’t know about that as I’ve never been to a beach before but what I do know is that it’s just not fair for them to gang up on me like this, how am I supposed to play with them when they’re in a big gang like that? I’m just going to concentrate on those that are still flitting about in the hedge, come on mummy let’s go. But mummy was just standing there mesmerised by the dancing birds. She said it was quite a beautiful sight and wondered out loud to me how they managed to all know when to change directing all at the same time. Eventually with enough tugging at the lead we carried on with our walkies but with mummy keeping one eye on the birds.

On one walkies mummy and I met a boy called Jasper and he had come along the road to watch the birds flocking and stopped to say hello to us. He was a very polite boy and said that he wanted to take his cat for a walk on a lead too coz it was scared of lots of noises and he wanted to take it out into the garden to show it the grass and bushes. He asked mummy if he could stroke me and of course mummy said yes, he was very gentle and careful stroking me, he asked why I couldn’t see and mummy told him the story of my early life as a street cat. Then as he carried on stroking me he told us all about the birds and their strange group flying, he said that it was called a murmuration and that it was only this particular species of bird that did it, he called the birds Starlings. We all stood and watched the birds together with Jasper telling us about why they did this and how they all keep up with each other. I heard mummy telling him how clever he was to know so much about the birds, he just said that he loved birds and watching them flying about in their special formation. So we all stopped on our driveway and watched the Starlings flying around until all of a sudden mummy said “oh wow! Look at that, they’ve all just swooped down and disappeared somewhere” and as quick as that the show was over and the sky was quiet again, then Jasper said he had to go back home so his mummy didn’t worry about him. We said goodbye but I hope we get to meet Jasper again soon.

Then, it was back to normal and I meowed to mummy to get going and carry on with our walkies, it was time to head off and check out the neighbourhood…finally…it’s about time for me to complete my neighbourhood watch patrols to make sure everything is A-ok before settling down for dinner and a cuddle.