Evidence that occasionally Fran can feel a bond with Nature

I stood waiting for a bus today, by a tree. All was quiet (including, no bus ...)

Then a bird began to sing. I looked up at the tree but couldn't see it at first. Who'd handed it a microphone? It wasn't just singing; it was yelling a song out as though hoping it would reach a little birdy penpal in the Far East.

I caught some of the words. The song went something like this.

'I'm a bloody brilliant singer.
There should be an X-Factor programme for birdies.
Simon Cowell wouldn't know what had hit him.
Tweet tweet double tweet.
Why does Adele get all the attention?
She doesn't even enunciate her consonants. I do. TweeeeeeeeeeeeeeT.
See, no glottal stops for me.
David Bowie kicks the bucket and, oh yes, SO much fuss,
but if I keeled over now and lay on my back,
my little dead legs in the air like bonsai twigs,
who's going to miss MY music?'
Tweet tweet double tweet.'

As you can see, the little bird needs to revise 'Effective Rhyming for Wildlife', but there was no doubting the emotive content.

On and on it sang, and then at last I saw it. No wonder it had taken a while to locate it. It was this big.

Almost a wart, although a pretty one. 

One reason for using that picture of the knitted bird is that I don't know if it was a wren or a sparrow or a bluetit or, indeed, an ostrich. An ostrich is less likely; I don't think an ostrich would know about David Bowie.

I don't know what I was doing during those lessons when my junior school teacher taught us about 'British Birds'. I may have been practising the use of semi-colons under the desk, being already more of a punctuation person than a nature lover.

When it comes to the definition of 'tiny, fragile, beautifully-crafted things that sing', I think this could equally describe a comma or a full-stop. I suspect this sets me apart from much of the population of Warwickshire where I live.   the entire world.

A poem.

I don't know the difference between a tit or wren.
I am much more interested in those moments when
a comma splits a sentence into clauses oh-so-sweet.
I'll take that any day above a random birdy tweet.


ON THE OTHER HAND .....

It did impress me, that such a major noise could emit from such a tiny little creature. It got me thinking (uh oh, Don't Let the Woman Think!), what other tiny things make big noises disproportionate to their size?

'Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllll You know you make me wanna SHOUT!'

These will snap, crackle and pop for precisely 3.25 minutes while you listen, fascinated.
And then at 3.26 minutes, they'll be soggy.

Any fly trying to escape through a pane of glass. They only do this when you've just
 settled down for a Sunday afternoon nap.

Any small child denied instant satisfaction









Children's plastic recorders. They may look innocent. But so did Crippen.