We eat the birds

“We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn’t sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can’t fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don’t stand a chance. We’re mired in gravity, we’re earthbound. We’re ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.”

Margaret Atwood

I don't think I can add a lot more to this wonderful diatribe although I will at least try and explain why I am writing about eating birds - well birds.

There are two reasons why. The first is my picture of the day - The Tree of Crows by Caspar David Friedrich a German Romantic painter. It's in the Louvre and they bought it as recently as 1975 so they must think it's good. Death in the foreground, life in the distance, though the crows are coming to the tree (which is dead looking).

I quite like the picture but normally I would not have used it as an inspirational picture. It's just that I have been thinking a bit about birds of late - or rather I've been noticing them a tiny bit more. Not super exotic birds - just the ordinary ones you find in Melbourne back gardens. And this is because for the first two mornings a bronze wing - that's the bird at the top of the page, has been sitting under the eaves outside our bedroom window, eating insects and singing his song. Well it's not a song - it sounds a bit like a swing going backwards and forwards. In fact it was years before I realised that this noise was in fact a bird. It's a one note song and so I can't imagine that it is saying very much. Not like a magpie who has such a complicated song that you could well believe it is communicating, chatting even to his family. And there's a magpie who also comes around every morning and bangs on the window as if to say 'it's time to get up". Or maybe it's just saying hello. As the bronze wing sings his song he ducks his head. And there seems to be a response from somewhere nearby. I am ashamed to say that I have often wondered about them as potential food - they are a little pigeon like but much fatter looking and we eat pigeons after all don't we? Maybe they taste horrid. Rats of the air my son calls pigeons but they are rather lovely too and they are magnificent survivors.

As are the mynahs who keep up a constant tweeting in our garden and most likely chase away almost every other bird. They too don't have a varied song. In fact you can't really call it a song. But it's constant from dawn to dusk. They are such spunky little things that I feel a sort of affection for them even though they are very aggressive to other birds - even ones much bigger than themselves. A bit small to eat, but then in France they eat thrushes and other tiny birds I believe. But if survival of the fittest is really the raison d'être of life then they will survive.

I love birds, even though they are really rather fierce looking when you look closely at their faces - and those beaks are a bit sharp looking. But yes I wish I could fly, and I love to listen to them, however monotonous their song. But I do eat birds - lots of them - mostly chicken - probably the meat we eat most in fact, occasionally duck when we eat out, and well - the Christmas turkey is coming up is it not? Chickens and turkeys don't fly - maybe we punish them for this by eating them. I sort of wish I didn't, but I do. Maybe this is survival of the fittest too.

"The more often we see the things around us - even the beautiful and wonderful things - the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds - even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less." Joseph B. Wirthlin