It's not over until the blackbird sings
Spring finally comes to Melbourne
The other day Katie saw me looking out the window at the birds in our courtyard and remarked that she should get me a bird feeder.
I don’t like the idea of bird feeders. It seems like a similar operation to a strip club, giving the birds a little something so that you can watch them shake their tails. Then the food runs out and the birds give their attention to the guy next door who has green hair and is always wearing an oodie, until I pony up a little seed and suet and they’re back again. That’s not the kind of relationship I’m looking for. I just want to watch the birds out the window or from our balcony, though not in a creepy way.
Besides, the myna birds would probably bully all the other birds and hoard all the seed for themselves. The hapless doves don’t stand a chance against them. The blackbird doesn’t like the myna birds either, and prefers to keep to himself anyway.
But he’s the one I’m watching, the blackbird.
His proper name is the Common Blackbird, which is a bit of a dig, calling him ‘common’, but it is better than his scientific name, Turdus merula. To look at him you would probably say that common is fair, though. He’s just a regular sized solid-coloured black bird with a bright orange beak. Plain enough. But if you’ve ever heard him sing, you may find yourself going up to the bar to get a few more singles so that he’ll sing for you all night.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that spring has come to Melbourne.
But despite what the calendar said, I was still feeling a bit of a hangover from the tail end of winter, as it went out with howl. If you read either of my last two Letters, you’d remember that I had been humbled by a blood clot in my leg and the subsequent trip to the ER.
As copious amounts of blood thinners dulled the pain in my leg, a case of Covid then hit one of my sons. We kept him locked in his room for nearly a week, but Katie, my other son Oscar and I experienced the false feelings that we had it too. For a week I would awake with puffy eyes and a streaming nose, random aches and a wheeze that had me wondering if I had somehow developed a clot in my right shoulder, up my nose, or if one had finally found its way to my lungs.
Then it dawned on me that I was simply suffering one of the side effects of spring, something that blows in on the warm floral scented winds, hayfever.
More than just a visceral feeling of change and your body waking up as the days get longer, spring’s also an angry feeling in your sinuses and grit in your eyes. Possibly because a short warm spell had everything blooming. Walking down our street, you’ll pass a magnolia tree that’s thick with giant purple flowers and the smell of bubblegum fills the air from jasmine that’s trying to escape from someone’s yard by climbing the fence.
The signs can be seen in our courtyard as well. A month ago the last of the leaves were blown from the trees that stand around the perimeter. Now, they’re already sporting pale green leaves and little white flowers. And there’s a monstrosity that seems ready to grab you when you’re walking by if you’re not careful.
The balcony on our house overlooks this courtyard, a rectangular paved space that we share with six other townhomes. It’s mostly used for cars, but there are misshapen trees and unkempt bushes where birds like to hang out, in an environment that’s got a bit of a schoolyard feel to it.
There are two turtle-doves. Insert your own Christmas joke here, but in all seriousness “The Twelve Days of Christmas” hasn’t been real good for the turtle-doves, as they get no respect. Part of that could be that they are a fat, grey bird that’s easily mistaken for a pigeon. They’re sporting a collar of darker feathers adorned with white spots to get the other birds to like them, but I don’t think that it is enough to get beyond the simple fact that they look like pigeons, and that they act kinda dopey. So they keep to themselves, waddling off into corners alone and whispering in soft hooting noises about Dungeons and Dragons or math problems.
Until inevitably the mynas show up and harass them into escaping up to the rooftops.
The myna birds are classic bullies, much like the two toughs in A Christmas Story who chase the kids home from school every day and then call them jerks and laugh at them for running.
I once saw a myna in the street that’d been hit by a car, and the flattened body was being picked at by two other myna birds. That’s no way to live. What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business, but out in the middle of the street?
In the courtyard they spend their days strutting around like they own the place, tormenting the doves and ganging up on crows twice their size, and then mocking them as they fly off. Mynas are known as songbirds and have an amazing ability to mimic, but what you hear is more like the shouted spew of random bird noises than singing.
“TWEE TWEE TWEE CHIT CHIT CHIT WEEOO WEEOO WEEOO SQWAK SQWAK SQWAK!” they shriek, the weeoo sounding every bit like a car alarm. And they do this at full volume, all day long. That couldn’t be more different than the blackbird.
Unlike the doves and the myna who occupy the courtyard all year long, the blackbird doesn’t come round outside of late winter and spring. Then when he does, he’ll keep to himself, sitting in a tree watching or hiding in some bushes where I think he keeps a nest.
He’s aloof and cool, responding to the mynas with an annoyed “twit twit twit” when they try and chase him like they do the doves, almost like he’s saying ‘bugger off and leave me alone’.
During the day he rummages in the brush looking for food. You’ll hear a sound like someone is raking leaves, and when you look it turns out to be the blackbird poking his beak in the leaves and quickly flipping his head to send brush flying, to reveal bugs and worms underneath.
He sings mainly at dusk, just as the last light of the day is fading. I’ve never heard him sing during the day, and mostly he’s quiet unless disturbed by something. This adds an air of mystery to him because you’d never guess about his talents as a singer, one that keeps the female blackbirds guessing and the doves curious.
Right around when the calendar turned to spring, I’d be in the kitchen cooking dinner when I would catch brief bits of his singing. Each time I would crack the door to the balcony to listen, or even just go to the window to peer out, and he would seemingly sense me and fly into the light of the dark, black night.
Encouraged by the trees and flowers brightening up, our family decided to do the same. What could be a better way to emerge from the grim greyness of winter than a haircut? Within the past month everyone in our family has gone under the clipper, though with different results.
Henry and I visited Wayne at a haircut shop in the city that is decorated with dude kitsch. You know the ones: there’s a large framed picture of Elvis on the wall next to a couple of skateboards, a neon sign of some variety, and a poster entitled ‘Elementary Physiology’ that shows a cartoon cross section through someone’s arm. The mirror was stolen from the bar of a long closed bowling club, and there’s a turntable spinning music. Fifty bucks and you’re guaranteed to walk out looking like a dude.
Katie did not want to look like a dude, so took a pair of scissors and cut her own hair. I wouldn’t advocate for cutting your own hair unless you’re shaving the lot. But it looks good on her.
I also wouldn’t recommend the route Oscar took to get his haircut. He got his done by a Grade 8 kid who cuts hair in the park after school. I don’t value my hair much, but I still wouldn’t let some random kid from school cut it. I don’t doubt the kid’s skills—well, actually, I do, based on what Oscar’s hair looks like. When I was in 8th grade, I could barely mow my parents’ lawn with any measure of quality.
I was getting home from a run one evening and saw the moon rising in the gloaming. It was huge and ominous, looming low in the sky. I later found out that it was the harvest supermoon, the harvest part coming from the fact that it was the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, which here in Australia is known as the vernal equinox.
I walked into the courtyard and slowed as I heard something, the soft singing of a bird. I followed the sound until I was near the tree in front of our neighbours house. Up in the branches was the blackbird, singing.
As I stood there listening motionlessly to not to scare him off, one of the neighbours walked into the courtyard. I immediately pretended to be doing some after run stretching so as not to look like a perv who was peering up into windows. I’m no weirdo, I thought. I’m just listening to birds.
The neighbour went into his house, and I continued listening as the darkness of night moved in. The blackbird sings in short melodies, like the stanzas of a poem. A few lovely whistles is followed by a flourish, sometimes clicks and whirring, other times the high pitched chirps of a canary, but each time was a different delight.
I’ve since learned something else related to the supermoon and the equinox that fell on that night. I learned that the vernal equinox marks the astronomical beginning of spring.
I think I could feel that as I stood listening to the peaceful singing of the blackbird. There had been a shift. My hayfever had subsided. My hair was sweaty, but looked otherwise reasonable - better than if it had been cut by some kid at Oscar’s school - and I’d just run like there had never been a clot in my leg.
And now I’d finally heard the blackbird sing. Much more so than a couple of weeks ago, this felt like spring.