1 post tagged “male blackbird”

It's Sunday, and the female has been incubating her eggs for a full week now. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily tedious job, and I'm wondering if she feels the same. A few days ago I noticed something new; the female, sitting on her nest, making the same plaintive "seep, seep" call that I had attributed to the male bird a few days before. She's obviously communicating something to her mate - but what? I crane my head to to see if there is something out there that could be bothering her. Nothing. Or at least, nothing that I can imagine would bother her - who knows what she's making of the world right now anyway? Then I get another idea, a more credible one. Is she calling her mate because she needs a rest from sitting, needs to stretch her wings, take in a worm or two, scratch her itchy belly? Could she actually be bored? At any rate the male doesn't come. I listen to her seeping pathetically for a good hour before he turns up, cautiously approaching the windowbox from it's most overgrown side. And she's off! As soon as he is in her field of vision she launches herself into the air without a backward glance, leaving him in charge. He perches awkwardly on the side of the nest, bows low to the eggs inside and peers at them uncertainly. He seems quite at a loss. He is handsome; I drink in his beauty as he straightens up and spots me. He is far more nervous than the female - he hasn't spent long hours in my company as she has, and I know I make him feel uncomfortable. He stands as stiffly as a sentry; I am reminded of the guards who stand along Whitehall in their bearskin hats and scarlet tunics, flamboyant, still as statues and utterly ridiculous. It becomes clear that he does not share his mates infinite patience and after only five minutes he flies up to perch on next doors roof, becomes unhappy with the view from up there, and drops back to the nest. After some impatient shuffling about on the nests rim, he's had enough and flies away, leaving the eggs unguarded. Luckily the female returns not long after, settles herself comfortably back onto the eggs and sits dreaming, her short rest break over.