Just a few paces from where I’m sitting, blackbirds are bickering in the garden.
It’s bleak mid-winter, but I know that soon, on a mild, rain-washed evening I’ll hear the first blackbird song of spring.
I can measure out my life in these mellow notes. Their soothing soundstream hauls precious memories back into the spotlight. A morning on the Lizard in Cornwall where a soloist performed in a rocky amphitheatre against a backdrop of crashing waves. The blackbirds which surprised me by singing from the snowy rooftops of Reykjavik. Kate Bush, mimicking the blackbirds “Song of Summer” on her wonderful album Aerial.
Best of all are the everyday blackbirds in my street or garden. At times of stress and anxiety, and there have been more of those than usual recently, their song brings me reassurance, a sense that the natural world is still working despite warnings to the contrary.
The naturalist in me knows that the bird is singing about sex and violence, but on another level I find hard to rationalise, it’s also uplifting and transformative.
And a dull late-winter’s day is suddenly brighter.