Birdsong

Once again I am back in the home of my dear Hungarian friends the Kalmans. I arriverd on Ryanair via Budapest on Wednesday night. All well here and I have amused myself on the first two mornings lying in my bed and trying to sort out the various participants in the dawn chorus coming through my window. Birdsong has been a conscious and recurring wake up call most of my life. Here the summer visitors have arrived and the swallows and house martins are feeding young under the eaves. Common once in Britain, but now increasingly rare, there are many House Sparrows busy with new families. Wood pigeons are giving their distinctive cooing which I remember from childhood sounded somethging like "Take two coos taffy! Heard too are the wingbeats of local White Storks that fly from thier lofty nests to ponds and streams to feed. The swallows and martins are constantly cheeping as they teurn with food for their young and I have heard, though not seen a local cuckoo as it overflies the house on the way to lay alien eggs in some poor Reedwarbler's nest I suspect. I am sure there will be more in my current bird list. Childhood memories of the Rookery in my grandfather's elm tree persist, but no rookery is closeby but I mayl add here others to the list as I identfy them.

Apropos of birdsong: - If you, dear reader have not yet read it, I thoroughly recommend Birdsong, a World War 1 novel by Sebasdtian Foulkes is one of the best novels of its genre in print today. ,