It’s spring. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, take a look out the window to see the truth. I won’t describe it—you know what spring looks like as well as I do.
What I will describe is the way it makes people sloppy. Going without coats when they catch the sunshine peering around the clouds, only to sprint home freezing. Setting out the cream for the Good People, when they still only want a drop of the best whiskey and then wondering why their keys go missing. Sloppy.
The bench outside the pub is a great spot to watch the spring roll in. Pint of the Old Brew, my personal favourite, I leave the place with the doors wide open to air it out before opening. The green is greening on the hill, and leaves are unfurling on the garden oak.
Last evening, a song thrush started up in the hedgerow. I put out crumbs, but there are still a few seed heads in the bushes so they didn’t touch them.
Its voice was clear. Repeating itself the way they do. Testing the air. The heat.
Songbirds return when the land thinks it’s safe to sing again.
That’s been the pattern since the worst of it. London lost them first. The small, bright ones always go early. By the end there were more pigeons, crows, magpies. We didn’t get as far as the birds of prey here. But London did. A friend reported seeing eagles swooping around Tower Bridge. Never vultures though.
What’s changed lately is the numbers.
The thrush wasn’t alone. Robins. A pair of finches arguing over the fence line. Enough voices that you start to believe the story people want to tell—that it’s done. That whatever was rising didn’t quite make it. That they’ve gone back underground to lick their wounds.
Thing is, they never do that for long.
The crows know particularly. They’re not passing through. They’re high up, circling.
That’s the part that doesn’t fit if it’s over.
The signals don’t agree.
I’m not the only one noticing.
Cuinn sent a postcard from home. No return address. Just a photograph of a wet coastline and three lines:
Good to get more of the black stuff.
But it’s not staying cold.
Keep watching the sky, lad.
He is always the one that sees it first. Mark my words.
Spring’s convincing. I’ll give it that.
But when the birds can’t decide what phase we’re in, it usually means we’ve skipped something. Or postponed it.
Either way, it isn’t over, lovers.
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