The Bearded Tit Part 5

'You're quite tall, aren't you?' she'd mentioned.

'Average, I'd say. Taller than you. But you're microscopic. I know-stand up and we'll compare heights.'

We stood up and momentarily we were almost touching each other from head to toe. I could feel her warm breath against my chest.

'Er, I don't think you're supposed to do this face to face. You don't get such an accurate comparison.' She turned round with her back to me. It felt very pleasant.

'I think you're you're supposed to turn round as well.' supposed to turn round as well.'

Oh, of course. We stood back to back and came to the anticli-mactic conclusion that I was taller than her. And not only that, she was shorter than me. I think that was the sum of comparative height data that could be extracted from the experiment but I had touched her and that, funnily enough, had done nothing to diminish the unutterable utterness of my utter desire for her.

Her hand was resting on the table very close to my hand. I took a risk. I moved my hand on top of hers. A chaffinch arrived at the next table and started clearing up the crumbs. She moved her hand from under mine and pointed at the bird.

'Hey, that's very tame for a chaffinch!'

'Yes,' I agreed. b.l.o.o.d.y chaffinch.

'Go on then. What is it? Chaffinch?'

'What do you mean?'

'I thought you'd learnt them.'

She was talking about scientific names for birds-how off-putting! And I had had made a serious stab at learning them but they definitely weren't uppermost in my mind at this point. made a serious stab at learning them but they definitely weren't uppermost in my mind at this point.

'Er...oh. Yes, it's got 'celebrity'' or something in it. Er, Celebs Celebs something. something. Coelebs fringilla Coelebs fringilla.'

'Actually it's Fringilla coelebs Fringilla coelebs.'

Well, it had its back to me.'

Once the commonest bird in Britain and still up there with the frontrunners, certainly still one of the most abundant birds in Europe, and an early winner for newcomers to birdwatching. You'll see a chaffinch every day. Yes, you will. They perch openly and are less timid than most birds. And they have marvellous plumage. The adult male has a blue-grey head, pink breast, brown back, an olive-green rump and two unmissable bright white wing bars on dark brown to black wings.

The long loud song, once you learn to recognize it, will seem to be the only thing you ever hear in spring as the male tirelessly attempts to attract a female. The song starts as a slow chirrup, speeding up and getting louder and ending with a long, loud fading note. Some twitchers find it reminiscent of a fast bowler, lumbering up to the crease, getting faster then climaxing with the long pitch of the ball. A better birder than I has transcribed the song as 'chip chip chip chiri chiri chiri cheep tcheweeeoooo'. That may be quite accurate, but all I can say is that I've never succeeded in attracting a female chaffinch by singing it. The female chaffinch is, incidentally, a rather dull, buffy-brown version of the male, retaining the striking black and white of the wings. Fringilla coelebs Fringilla coelebs means 'bachelor finch'. means 'bachelor finch'. Coelebsor Coelebsor more often more often caelebsis caelebsis the root of the English word 'celibate'. Yet, inexplicably, you invariably see chaffinches in pairs. Mr and Mrs Chaffinch always look like an advert for marital stability. Has some Victorian scientist c.o.c.ked up here? the root of the English word 'celibate'. Yet, inexplicably, you invariably see chaffinches in pairs. Mr and Mrs Chaffinch always look like an advert for marital stability. Has some Victorian scientist c.o.c.ked up here?

'Give me another one.' I'd run out of physical proximity manoeuvres. It was time to show off my revision.

'Starling.'

She was being kind to me.

'Sturnus vulgaris... which is, let's face it, Latin for 'common starling'.' which is, let's face it, Latin for 'common starling'.'

'Robin.'

'Erithacus rubecula. That's the first one you taught me. Here's one for you. Eritkacus fidus? Eritkacus fidus?

'Er...No idea. Don't know what fidus fidus is.' is.'

''Fidus is dependable and loyal.' is dependable and loyal.'

'Still don't know.'

'Reliant Robin.'

'Oh I see. I didn't realize the game had veered off down a puerile side road.' She laughed affectionately and put her hand on mine.

Did you hear that? She put her hand on mine!

'Anas platyrhyncbos?' she asked.

'Well, I think Anas Anas is a duck, so I'll plump for mallard.' is a duck, so I'll plump for mallard.'

'Spot on.'

I thought for a moment. 'How about this? Anas lavatorius? Anas lavatorius?

'Toilet duck.' She pulled a long-suffering parent face in my direction. 'Oh, I think I've just found your level now. What's thrush?'

'Candida albicans.'

She laughed and put her hand over her mouth with mock modesty. She was giggling and relaxed now. I think she likes me.

I finished with Aquila slapheadii Aquila slapheadii (bald eagle) and she had to go back to work. (bald eagle) and she had to go back to work.

I was helpless. This girl is the best, I thought.

The absolute tops.

Or, to use the scientific binomial, the Testiculi canis Testiculi canis.

FANTASTIC WORD, FANTASTIC BIRD.

Word-watching, as opposed to birdwatching I suppose, has been my constant, pa.s.sive, background hobby. The bird world is a fertile breeding ground for strange technical and non-technical terms.

'Dihedral' is a great one. This is the angle formed by two meeting or intersecting planes. You might wonder what that has to do with birds. Well, it is what the experts use to describe the shallow 'V with which some larger birds of prey glide or soar. Marsh harriers have a beautifully clear 'dihedral'.

'Supercilium' is a must. It is the Latin for eyebrow, but any bird book will be quick to describe a bird's pale or dark supercil-ium. The yellow-browed warbler has a peach of a supercilium: yellow, of course.

'Speculum' is a metal device beloved of doctors and, I suppose, anyone else who wants to inspect a bodily orifice. It can also be a small mirror or reflector. In the avian world it is usually a bright, l.u.s.trous mark on the wings. You need go no further than the commonest duck of all, the mallard, to find a fab speculum: a flash of purply-blue on its wing.

'Dander', as in 'get your dander up', means feathers 'ruffled in anger, warning or fear'. It is connected to the word 'dandruff but generally used for animals; the scaly, scurfy skin caught in fur and hair. Horses produce a lot of it apparently.

And then there are expressions that you only ever ever come across in descriptions of birds in field guides. 'Rufous trousers' is a beauty; sounding vaguely like a thirties' jazz saxophonist, it is the reddish plumage near the rump and legs of some birds. The hobby will do nicely for this. And another great phrase, sounding like someone you might like to welcome to the stage to join Rufous Trousers and his band: Buffy Underparts. I won't detain you with the birds whose underparts could be said to be buffy; the list is long. come across in descriptions of birds in field guides. 'Rufous trousers' is a beauty; sounding vaguely like a thirties' jazz saxophonist, it is the reddish plumage near the rump and legs of some birds. The hobby will do nicely for this. And another great phrase, sounding like someone you might like to welcome to the stage to join Rufous Trousers and his band: Buffy Underparts. I won't detain you with the birds whose underparts could be said to be buffy; the list is long.

'Frantling' is the mating call of a peac.o.c.k. It is a word I've somehow managed to do without for most of my life, but now I use it as often as I can.

'Was that a frantling, darling?'

'No, it was the phone.'

'Oh, I thought the peac.o.c.ks were at it again!'

But one of my favourite words, which is not from the world of birds but is one I will always a.s.sociate with birds, is a word I'm afraid I cannot remember.

I've got a feeling it ends with something like '-asthaenia' or '-esthenia'. Anyway, it's one of those Greek medical words you only ever hear on University Challenge University Challenge and which no one knows. Paxman reads the definition out with a sneering 'tut' as if it's a word he's known since he was three. It means, roughly, a psychological dysfunction that causes the sufferer to confuse the senses. So, basically, you hear things you should see and see things you should hear. You taste or smell sound or colour. Any reader who's got very stoned, lain in the back garden on a sunny day with headphones on and listened to Tangerine Dream will know what I mean. and which no one knows. Paxman reads the definition out with a sneering 'tut' as if it's a word he's known since he was three. It means, roughly, a psychological dysfunction that causes the sufferer to confuse the senses. So, basically, you hear things you should see and see things you should hear. You taste or smell sound or colour. Any reader who's got very stoned, lain in the back garden on a sunny day with headphones on and listened to Tangerine Dream will know what I mean.

I always remember that word, which, as I say, I can't actually remember, when I see or hear a skylark. Especially somewhere in the flatlands of the Cambridges.h.i.+re-Norfolk border. It's a favourite place of mine. The first time I was there is unforgettable. I still find the memory unsettling.

It was a soaking day in February. The dark-white light of rainy sky and black earth made it hard to look out of the train window. I went back to the crossword. I was travelling from Peterborough to Cambridge, via Ely. The railway line arcs to the east then to the south and then to the west, bisecting the flattest land in Britain with a sodden semi-circle. This is a drowning land, a sinking land. The landscape is scarred with the history of man's efforts to keep it from the sea. The twenty-foot drain. A disturbingly dead-straight channel nearly twenty feet wide and nearly twenty miles long. Ditches and ca.n.a.ls intersect at unnatural right angles, glaring perpendiculars in the dark peaty soil. At the beginning of the journey the twelfth-century Norman bulk of Peterborough Cathedral recedes into the drizzle; at the end of the journey the ghostly galleon of Ely Cathedral looms towards you out of the drizzle. In between, an impossibly low horizon makes it a land of sky. It feels like a journey through the Dark Ages, a journey on the edge of the known world.

Somewhere in the middle, I looked up from the paper and out of the window. It was a shock. I held my breath. The train was out at sea. Water joined the white sky in a continuous sheet of gla.s.s.

I looked again. For a second I was frightened.

No, wait.

There's a tree out there in the ocean.

Another one.

A hedge. The land had drowned. These are the Ouse Washes. The Great Ouse river regularly floods the surrounding land, which is so flat it disappears. To the uninitiated, it is a profoundly disturbing landscape. But it makes a great piece of natural wetland, which brings in the birds and the watchers all year round.

That was my first time in those wetlands. The next time was on a hot summer's day.

It's different.

So, so different.

Another-planet different.

I was in a huge meadow near Welney in Cambridges.h.i.+re. I felt as if there was nothing between me and the sun. Not even Mercury and Venus. The scorched earth gave no shelter. There was just the sweltering sky. I lay down on the gra.s.s. The intensity of blue weighing down on me.

I was alone with the heavens. Alone but for a bird. A very special bird. A bird that is not of this world. It descends from heaven to nest and then disappears again into the void. A skylark. A skylark singing without pause for what seemed like hours. A small, nondescript brown bird had flown high enough to be invisible to the naked eye and poured out its music. Oh, yes, and that word. That's when I thought of that word I couldn't remember. Something-esthaenia. Mixing up the senses.

I imagined each note of the skylark's song was a droplet of sunlight, and the music was sprinkling down on me in a glittering shower from the bird's tower of song. Each trill and phrase of the melody was a handful of gleaming rose-petals, tossed out in the upper atmosphere by the hands of a beautiful angel; they fluttered down leaving a misty trail of perfume, drenching me in scented light and music.

And the collective noun for skylarks?

An exultation. Perfect.

Peerless king of the summer sky. What a bird!

What a day. What a memory. Oh, yes...and I suppose I should say...What a joint!

THE NAME OF THE WAITRESS.

My studies, if that is not too august or misleading a term for my university days, were increasingly following JJ's timetable. At 10.15 a.m. I'd stop what I was doing, usually sleeping, down tools, so to speak, and go round to Blackwaters and join JJ for her coffee-break. Same for the 4 a.m. break, though I was generally out of bed by this time. One o'clock meant meeting for a pub lunch. Back in those blissful, carefree, pre-health-and-safety days, lunchtime drinking was quite normal. People were eyed with suspicion if they didn't return to their desks with the faint volatile whiff of a swift pint, at least.

One such lunchtime, the weather was still mild enough to find me and JJ outside at the back of the pub. The beer garden, I believe, is the correct term for the expanse of concrete between the bins and the karzies. From the kitchen the obscenities of the cooks wafted over to us on a wave of chip-fumes. This pub garden at least had a plant. A straggly creeper was unconvincingly climbing up a trellis in an attempt to get over the wall into the street and leg it.

'Let's sit here under the honeysuckle,' I said. I'd learned this much in my few short years: girls seemed to be impressed by blokes who know about flowers.

'It's a wisteria,' said JJ.

'Oh, don't tell me you know all the names of plants as well?'

'No, just a few. But if I see something I like, a bird or plant or tree, I like to know what it is.'

'I always thought that a plant was a plant, a flower was a flower and a tree was tree.'

'You can recognize birds and know their names.'

'Yeah, but that's accidental. I drew them-I copied them out of a book.'

'But you enjoy knowing their names, don't you?'

I wasn't sure I understood this question.

'Well, if I didn't know their names and I saw a nicely coloured bird, a great t.i.t, say, I'd probably say, 'Hey, that's a nicely coloured bird. How pretty!''

'What about that girl serving in the cafe yesterday?'

I vaguely remembered the pretty, dark-haired girl who struggled engagingly with her English as she took our order.

'Yeah, what about her?'

'What was her name?'

'I've no idea. What a strange question.'

'Giancarla. She was called Giancarla.'

'How the h.e.l.l do you know that?'

'She was wearing a badge with Giancarla Giancarla on it.' on it.'

Mmm. Giancarla. That's a nice name. As I thought about it, the image of the girl in my mind became clearer. Yes, it suits her, I thought. Slinky, slim, s.e.xy Giancarla. Yes, that's nice.

'You see, until now she was just the waitress. Now you know her name. It changes things, doesn't it? It changes your relations.h.i.+p with her. If we saw lots of birds on a bird table feeding and I said, 'Look at that pretty bird,' what would you say?'

'Is it Giancarla?'