Sue, this one is for you......................................... " I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself." ................... Marlene Dietrich

The Old Bakery sits in the centre of two very different worlds. One overwhelmingly tranquil and seemingly of little consequence in the bigger picture of life. The other of War and power which by cause and effect directly influences that bigger picture.....

With the former I talk of a small nest box, one of a couple given to me as a present, which I clambered up a ladder and carefully positioned high on the wall of the Annex. within a couple of weeks myself and Claire noticed a pair of Blue Tits checking it out and then over the next few weeks they could be seen clearly bringing nesting materials in. We now had our first set of lodgers. We went on with our lives, as did they, and as the early cherry blossom fell it was exasperated by the Tits plucking more off the tree to use as nesting material.

Across on the other side of the garden a Black bird had set up a nest in a pile of pea sticks. She had laid 4 speckled light blue eggs and she was crammed into her nest with her tail poking up into the sky as it simply would not fit into the nest as well. I had to stop mowing in the immediate area as her nest was only 3 foot off the ground and I had no wish to disturb her. However rather sadly something must have spooked her and only a couple of weeks later she had abandoned both the nest and the tiny fragile brood of eggs that lay within it. Not long after the eggs were found by some wild creature and cracked opened and consumed.

So it was with a sense of contentment when this disappointment was counteracted by the noise of squealing little Blue Tit chicks emanating from our bird box. Now the parents activity really stepped up as they took it in turns to shoot out of the nest box (like a Cuckoo clock on steroids) and off over the hedge returning within the minute carrying a juicy fat bug (see the Wednesday, 18 May 2011 Blog). This was either transferred to the other parent at the entrance to the box or directly into the nest box to a starving, bleating chick trying to persuade the giver with a chirpy "ME, ME, ME, ME, ME......

As each day passed the chicks became more noisy and the parents more active and subsequently less preened and hence more scruffy. Again it seemed like only a couple of weeks passed by before I became aware of a frenzy of activity & noisy chirping was echoing from our cherry trees in the garden. As I went to investigate the cacophony I felt a passing blow to my head and upon glancing up I found that a faltering Blue Tit chick had collided with my head on route to a low manageable branch of a shrub just above me.
 

Photo taken by Claire

These little fledglings are sustained by their parents undying devotion and self sacrifice as they too fly many sorties to and fro delivering grubs and food to their children. Just look at how unkempt the parent appears compared with the chick. It's body weight has dropped and it cannot have preened itself for the duration, the poor thing looks fit to drop and yet it's frenzied food delivery service goes on and on.
A few days back we found two Long Tailed Tit chicks dead in our front yard. It looks like they had fallen from a nest in our Wisteria and the parents simply could not help them. It's a tough old world out there and not quite as sublime as it appears on the face of things.






The latter of the two worlds rip through the Norfolk skies unzipping the air with their dual Rolls~Royce Jet engines. The Tornado Jet fighters are very lean, mean killing machines and fly occasional training sorties over us alternating with the deadly journeys South to bomb Tripoli.

The two worlds are in complete juxtaposition and the strange thing is that Claire and I are fascinated by both of them. Each time the fluffy little ball of Blue Tit fledglings come out of the nest to play we are out there to watch and photograph them and then, with the same verve and enthusiasm we both rush out if we hear the slightest roar of a jet fighter to see this fantastic plane fly overhead. Today there was a single Tornado practising dropping rapidly from a great height, pulling up quite low to the ground and then at full thrust shooting like a rocket straight back up, quite vertical, into the blue sky.

I am sure you won't believe this but last week I heard two Tornado's screech above my house, I was upstairs and so I threw the window open only to see them really low down and curving off into the distance. As I watched them I heard the roar of a third plane which seemed to be landing on my very roof. I turned my head into an impossible angle and looked straight up at my house roof in anticipation when all of a sudden this Tornado appeared, right above my head, at such an angle that I could clearly see the pilot and as I looked at him he appeared to be gazing right back at me. I swear that if he had not had his helmet on I could have identified the guy in a police line up, that was how low he was. And in an instant he was gone again.

I bet those guys just love doing that stuff.





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