Jenny and my Strangeness.

The wren is a shy, secretive and permanently busy little bird, usually glimpsed only briefly in the hedgerow, the wood store, or scuttling in and out of the gaps between the stones in old walls. The family name Troglodytidae basically means ‘cave dweller.’ In Britain the wren is commonly perceived as female, based on an old belief that it was the female of the robin species, which is why she is commonly known as Jenny Wren.

She’s a pretty, characterful little bird, and one of my personal favourites. There’s been one darting around the garden all summer, and I always got a bit of a lift on those days when I saw her. I saw her again today; she was lying dead on the path, a little mangled.

It’s hard to explain to normal people why such a find is of such consequence to me, especially since there are so many more substantive things to care about like clothes and cars, soaps and shopping malls. I suppose it’s because the energy, character and presence of a bird means more to me than relatively characterless things like clothes, cars, soaps and shopping malls. In the final analysis, the only place to lay the blame is on my own strangeness.