Hello!
I have been trying to think of a story to tell about birds and after reading Carla's story about the birds in her garden I have decided to tell the story of my father!
My parents live in England, in Devon to be more precise and on the Cornish border, more or less. My father was born in London and grew up mainly in cities and first visited the countryside when he was about ten. Of course, he loved it, and he has been living in the same house in the middle of nowhere for over forty years now. This has advantages and disadvantages. Of course it is very beautiful and the air is clean and the food is good etc etc etc but it is 20 minutes drive to the nearest town and 1 hr to the nearest city, which is not ideal for a teenager. Once I got my driving licence I started to love it again!
In my family we refer to my father as a tree, as he spends most of his time outside, in almost any weather, he's not very talkative and to be a bit more insulting, perhaps because his skin is now similar to that of a tree!! It's OK, he doesn't use the internet so he will never see this! But the main reason I think he is referred to as a tree is because of his relationship with birds (here I mean feathered birds, not the English slang referring to women!). Whenever he is outside working on something (he is now retired so this is now mainly to tend the vegetable plants, but he used to breed roses), or whenever he leaves the house, the birds seem to greet him with a song, and he knows all the different songs and responds in a human 'whistle'. It is quite fascinating to listen to his 'conversations' with the birds. He can't know what he is saying, but the conversation always sounds friendly! Now I know that some neighbouring farmers have witnessed this and might think he is insane, but I think it is a great talent. I have also noticed that all the birds go over to him to talk to him and they always stay near him if he is outside. He tells me that this is because they are safe if they are near him as he will scare their predators. They must think I am a predator because they never stay around too long if I go out there, even if he is there to 'protect' them!
So that is the story of my father and the birds of Devon!
See you on Thursday.
Felicity
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Felicity !!!! What a nice story it is !!!!But I hope it is true !!!!!Because I belived every word Miquel had written despite his warning !!!!
ResponderEliminarYou make me travell to Devon I could imagine your father singing with the birds !!!!
composition. birds
ResponderEliminarComposition
Finally I find a little free time to write this composition about BIRDS
I was thinking about this subject a lot, without any inspiration…. Then at this season of the year I have a lot of Italian student’s groups that make me very tired and nervous, because they don’t have any interest and are very talkative….
And when I arrive at home I have no feel like going to write.
Long time ago when I get to the EOI, I remember we have to read “ MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS” by Gerald Durrell… It was a book that I like a lot, really, I enjoyed it very very much , then in my own I read “BIRDS, BEAST AND OTHER ANIMALS”….
Under a literary point of view, they aren’t literary books, or scientific ones, they are books without any plot. The writer wrote his experiences when hi was a child and lived in Corfu (Greece), his particular experiences one after another without continuity. The reading of the books isn’t easy, the vocabulary is a bit complicated al the beginning, because is full of animal nouns that I didn’t know beforehand.
To my mind, there aren’t books about animals only, because besides the animal stories, there are beautiful descriptions of the Greek countryside. If you have time, I recommended you to read, at least one of the books
But….I don’t forget that subject of the composition is about birds….and why I write to you this introduction….Because I remember that when we talked about the books at class, all the people look very surprised at me, when I explained that I had a lot of birds at home….
What??? Yes, a lot of bird, perhaps fifty or more. Why????
Well, I am country girl, when I was a child at home, we have a lot of animals; not cats or dogs, as usually, rabbits, pigs, chicken, ducks, goats….
So, forty years ago, Sant Just, my village, seemed very far from Barcelona, it was a country village and a lot of families live in a single house with a vegetable garden, with fruit trees and grow animals…in order to eat them ( the other students didn’t believe me…)
My father made a big cage ( so big that it was possible to go inside) to grew canaries and other little birds, like goldfinches and greenfinches….He put there a death Christmas tree and birds had a lot of space to fly… In spring he put nests in a special wood place and it was very interesting to look how the every male choose his female and they stayed together in the nest, they got eggs ( thee or four per couple) and then the little birds born….a bird per day… at the beginning they were very awful without feathers, how they grew, day by day, then how the parents feet them…with a special meet that my father put just for them… how the parents clean the nest, how they tried to fly…. Sometimes ants went to the nest and ate the little birds….and sometimes someone death.
When my father dead, my husband tried to follow this hobby for several years, and my children had the opportunity to live these special experiences….
I remember that when my old son started to school, one day his teacher wanted to speak with me, because he was very worried with my son, because he had a very strange ideas, so, he explained that at home he had a bid cage of birds that it was possible to go inside, to fly with the birds, and that this kind of fantasies were no normal in a boy of his age, and she suggested to me to sent my son to the psychologist…..….Do you imagine the face of this teacher when I explained l to hem that it was true. , that t in spite to live near Barcelona we are a country family….and we have this kind of cage at home……
And now a second history about birds ( je je)
Sometimes tourist are like children and they make me a lot of crazy questions. One of these questions are put me in the Park Guell… I am talking about Gaudi and his ideas and that the park for Gaudi has to be a Holiday complex and bla, bla, bla…. And the question arrives
-Excuse me???? What king of birds are these????
-yes, just a minute, please….
Because nowadays there are a lot of green parrots, living on their own, in the Park Guell and in a lot of gardens of Barcelona. The history of these parrots is very nice…
This king of birds don’t belong to our fauna, they came from Brazil.
Around thirty years ago these birds, that they have the same size of a pigeon, and a beautiful green colour, where sold like pets , they were cheap, and a lot of children received them as a present with a special cage and food and so on….but they are very “talkative” and they make a nasty noise all the time….at the beginning they are beautiful and funny….but some weeks after, the noise was so nasty that was impossible to live with them at home….and people have a lot oh problems with the neighbours….and the easy solution was to open the cage and the bird flies away….
As the weather in Barcelona is warm and we have a lot of palms threes. They have the possibility to make their nests inside the palm threes and eat the dates…so, they had colonized our gardens and they had found a new habitat…
it is possible to look at them, everywhere in town…They can fly a lot. and when the palm trees have no fruits, they can eat almonds, tomatoes and other fruits that find in the vegetable gardens in the Llobregat Delta….so,, they are starting to be a problem for the Delta country families….
Beautiful history….that sometimes interest the tourist most that the Gaudi constructions…
Montsrerat Rajadell.-
Hi Felicity! what a nice history...i think there are some people "connected" with animals...my father, when he was young, was working as a sherphed and he has an special knolewdge about animals and nature...the changes of the weather, why the behaviour of the animals changes...is very interesting because when i go to the countryside with he, I always learn new things about the enviromental... And I don't know a history about birds (instead of the history explained by Sir Alfred...;-) But one thing is clear for me: I don't like pigeons and seagulls...if you're eating something they could be really dangerous...in Vigo, next summer, a lot of seagulls came to us in a dare way and all our food dissapear in seconds...was amazing...the rest of birds...well, i like...but I don't understand people who grew up a lot of birds (I have a friend who have 300 birds or more in his house and go to competitions from all Europe)...i don't understand the pleasure to see birds in cages...
ResponderEliminargood night!!!
ohhh...sorry!! last summer, no next summer...and he goes...sorry!!!sorry...birds make me nervous!! jaja
ResponderEliminarHere is my comment. I like very much your story. Although birds are all around it I think the love for your father betrayed you and it is a lovely story about him as well. To me the whole story is great. I love most animals but your father's portrait is lovely.
ResponderEliminarI've heard some cases about people like your father having the ability to keep close contact with some animals. I think to do that one needs much dedication and a lot of patience. Perhaps some animals feel instinctively which persons actually love them and they feel fearless. Alternatively they may accept proximity to humans when they learn that proximity may be a benefit rather than a thread.
I have a small experience with dogs since I was a child. I never feared dogs and I feel quite friendly with them. The fact is that many dogs are friendly to me when I get close and stroke them .
Hi Felicity! I think your story is great! It was really interesting to read about your dad's experience with birds. I don't have such a kind of relationship with birds, but like Miquel, I usually adore dogs and they usually like me as well. When I am close to a dog (and better when it is a pet), I like to touch them if I see they are nice and inofensive. I don't like agressive animals and les agressive people. I would try to look for inspiration for my story.
ResponderEliminarHope everyone is fine. See you all in April. Next stop: Rome.
Hugs,
Lydia