There was the odd fine and calm morning in Sherkin lately, with a touch of Spring in the air; daffodils bravely budding and a robin chirping out perkily from a tall branch, with its funny little intermittent bursts of song: ‘Here I am still…, I stuck it out..., I SURVIVED…, Spring is coming…, Bring it on…!’ I wonder where he was hiding through the vicious long, wet and windy nights?
Some species of birds have well established migration routes, others are committed to staying put; even members of the same species may follow a different strategy; I read, to my astonishment, that some of our robins head for southern Spain for the winter, though most of them tough it out at home in the north. Out at sea, one encounters the odd brave little migrant, some landing exhausted on the deck. Small song birds like robins fly with the same bursts of energy as their song, taking them up and down as they fly. What possessed them to head out across the waves? What informs their reckless instinct?
Neither option could be called the easy one; each calls for a different kind of courage, which seems to boil down to different temperaments. Do individual birds actually make such drastic choices? How can a little Irish robin know that there is another, warmer land across that bleak, unfriendly sea? It seems one might have to consider quantum mechanics or something, to begin to find an answer!
Or maybe we might even look within ourselves to do so? For me there is something very special about that ancient ding-dong between Ireland and the Iberian peninsula, promising release from the suffocation of dreary northern weather and dreary northern quarrels too, with their ghastly politics and their spiritual aridity; a realignment or rebalancing that might even help us to get creative again, instead of apparently being stuck in unmitigated negativity!
Such toing and froing has been working well for myself and Fiona, but I would hate it to be completely dependent on squashing into those wretched aeroplanes! We are on the wing again now though, in London before we head for Portugal and take up the battle to save our big bird, the ‘Anna M’, and make her fit to sail up and down for another while. If you would like to associate yourself with this effort through the Fundit scheme, there are only a few days left….
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I welcome feedback.... Joe