In the middle of a very busy day, I managed about half an hour in Holy Trinity churchyard, where a voracious gang of pigeons descended on the food I put out and scoffed almost all of it. Obviously they have as much right to eat as any other bird, but they also have a much better mass to surface area ratio than the tiny songbirds, so their need isn’t as critical and immediate, and it was galling to have to watch the tinies losing out. The fact that it was the songbirds I’d been hoping to photograph was an added personal irritation.
I don’t know how good a breeding season the Holy Trinity birds have had this year, but the Grey Squirrels seem to have produced a bumper crop of offspring, and there were around half a dozen juveniles scampering round my feet and up and down the nearby trees and monuments the whole time I was there. This though is one of the adults, which I noticed standing by an ancient gravestone, simply watching the frenetic activity. I can’t quite decide if it puts me most in mind of a monk with meditatively folded hands, an anxious mother looking for her children, or Uriah Heep assuring David Copperfield of his humility:
“I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly; “let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a sexton.”
Or maybe… it’s just a squirrel taking a few minutes for itself, in the middle of a very busy day.
R: L2, C2, D3.
