Friday 22 June 2012

The Joy of Flying Things.

I love swallows; they’re probably my favourite bird. So it was quite a thrill to find them hunting along the road and over the hedgerow when I went for a walk this evening. Dozens of them dipped and swerved and surged around and past me at breakneck speed, while I tried to get a glimpse of their tail fronds to see which were male and which female. At one point, one guy came heading straight for my face. I stood there smiling, trusting him to wheel away just in the nick of time – which, of course, he did. Maybe this is why I had a swallow tattooed on my arm long before I developed an affinity with birds.

It’ll be the turn of the bats in about twenty minutes – my regular evening entertainment. Not as fast, not as powerful, not as agile, but characterful and graced with the mystery of twilight. And they come closer.

2 comments:

andrea kiss said...

You have the bests posts. I love how you can write about the "simple things in life" and make them special, or rather, they really aren't that 'simple' are they? You see what is truly special and significant in life and i like that.


And i like bats. I think they're cute. Except when they get in your hair or pee on you.

JJ said...

Andrea, you're so damn precious, you know. You've just hit on the best reason for going a bit thin on the old thatched roof, and I've never yet been pee'd on by a bat. Nor a cat. Nor even a rat (although rats are a bit famous for it.)

May I answer the rest tomorrow? It's getting a bit late in dear old Blighty.