The Blackbirds – part 1

Years ago, when I shared this house with three other guys, we were very kindly given a sixteen-foot shed. We didn’t need anything so big, but friends were getting rid of it, and we didn’t have any other offers. Over a number of weeks, we disassembled it and then did the best our limited carpentry skills would allow us to put it all back together in our back garden where, aside from the occasional collapsed roof, it has remained, rickety and patched up, but undeniably spacious. It is a nice place to be when it isn’t too cold. We have an old dining table in there. When I want a change of scene, away from distractions and beyond the reach of wifi, I sit there and write. Hence, notes from the potting shed.

A few weeks ago, however, I discovered that I had guests in the potting shed. A couple of blackbirds had decided to build a nest on top of a cardboard box filled with wood I was drying for the fire pit. Either they had built it very fast, or I was spectacularly unobservant for a while because when I discovered the nest it was fully constructed. And they had laid eggs.

I panicked a little when I saw the eggs. Haunted by childhood memories of baby blackbirds attempting flight prematurely and meeting a messy end on the pavement outside our house, I decided I needed to ring my mum for advice. Much, I am sure, to the relief of the blackbirds, she told me that I must not move the nest, and that I should give them as much space as I could.

So that was that. A summer of writing at my shed table written off because some blackbirds had lazily mistaken a box of twigs in a shed for a nice regular tree. I’ve done my best to be generous to the squatters – using an old dust sheet to partition the shed off – their half and my half.

Mild inconvenience though it is to cede half of my shed to a couple of birds with dubious taste in nest-making, Mr and Mrs Blackbird have steadily won me over to their cause. They work tirelessly and selflessly for their young. I oversaw one particular act of heroism when the dominant cat of the neighbourhood came prowling along the nearby fence. This is not a cat to be messed with – I have seen him fighting the other cats in the neighbourhood off so that he can claim exclusive toileting rights to my garden. But Mr Blackbird’s screeches and repeated divebombing saw the cat beat a hasty retreat when he ventured a little too close to the nest.

From the endless supply of worms that Mr and Mrs Blackbird are now bringing into the shed, and the tiny chorus that greets their entry, it seems that the eggs have hatched over past few days. I cannot help but admire the tenacity and nurture of these parents. They have slowly worn away my frustration at the inconvenience of it all and I’m finding myself really quite emotionally invested in their survival. We will see what the coming weeks have in store.