Poor Thing

[poliphilo]

There's a frost on the ground. So the first thing I did this morning was renew the food in the bird feeders.

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor Robin do then?
Poor thing.
He'll sit in a barn,
And keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing,
Poor thing.

Which makes me think of Mary Poppins and how it's no longer permitted to feed the birds in Trafalgar Square.

Why, what harm did it really do? The birds messed up the monuments (so what?) but children loved being at the centre of a fury of wings, with birds perching on their shoulders, their heads....

Mayor Livingston is a good thing in some respects, but in this he's a kill-joy.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember being surrounded by birds in Trafalgar Square as a very small child- but I could be imagining it.

I don't really understand people being afraid of birds. Ingmar Bergman is afraid of them and there are scenes in his movies where there's lots of supposedly scary flutterment and I'm thinking, "so what?"

Bats I'm not sure about. I've not had enough to do with them.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I am not afraid of birds, per se (meaning I don't run shrieking from them), but neither do I want them flapping and fluttering all around me. I honestly cannot explain why. I have friend who take their birds out of their cages, and it makes me uncomfortable when suddenly the birds decide they want to fly about the room.

I think part of it is that I don't want them flying in my face, but I know how delicate they are and I am afraid that I will instinctively swat at them and end up hurting them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Birds do make a lot of noise and commotion in a confined space.

But the winged things that really spook me are moths...

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

But the winged things that really spook me are moths...

Not butterflies? Just moths?

Hmmm. Fascinating...

Is it because they flutter around at night? Because they're pale?

Hmmm.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Moths have big plump bodies and powdery wings. Brrrr.

I'm talking large moths here. Little ones don't bother me.

Butterflies are fine. No problem at all with butterflies.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Moths have big plump bodies and powdery wings. Brrrr.

Yes, it's the big plump bodies! Yuck.

I once heard an entymologist on the radio. He said he wished sometimes he could BE an insect! Can you imagine?

For me, it's ants.

When I was eleven I had some ants living in a jar, poor things. I found their tunnels interesting.

Then one day I was watching them walking up and down in the jar hell that I had invented and felt suddenly repulsed by them.

This is my awful sin: I put them in the dark part of the garage, where I forgot them.

I still feel terrible when I think about their starving to death.

How I wish I could go back in time and free them all!

In my next life, I will probably come back as an ant and get squished right away.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You won't come back as ant. You have repented.

But I think I see what the guy meant. Insect life is so different and yet- in its way- so intelligent. An anthill or a hive is like one mind divided up among thousands of different bodies. What would that feel like, I wonder?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

An anthill or a hive is like one mind divided up among thousands of different bodies. What would that feel like, I wonder?

And yet there's the zeitgeist. What's that all about?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess the zeitgeist could be our version of the hive-mind.

There's a story by E. Nesbit about a girl who dreams about living in a city where everybody is permanently angry and fixated on work and she wakes up and finds she's been sleeping next to an anthill...