Northern birds

I had a day off on Wednesday to visit my student daughter Up North (at the home of the Pink Panther - derrrrum, derrrrum, derrum derrum Durham!).

I popped into the Oriental Museum and was surprised to find a section on Egypt - not what I would call the Orient but, anyway, it was fascinating.  There was a mummified falcon - apparently many were killed and mummified as offerings to Horus - I wonder which species it was.  I noticed that birds were commonly used in hieroglyphs - with owls, vultures and quails being particularly common.  A note said that the ducks and geese in the thick reedbeds of the Nile were an important source of food for the ancient Egyptians - I wonder whether they are for the modern Egyptians too.

Crossing the Wear I saw three red-head goosanders - one right under the bridge.  I could see its orange legs and feet working hard to hold the bird still against the current and each time it dived I could see it move under water for a few instants.  From above, a dark line along the top of the bill was also obvious.  It's obvious I know, but seeing anything from a different angle often gives you a completely different perspective on it.

The Cathedral is an amazing building with its 15th century rose window and massive Norman columns, but it was another stained glass window which took my eye.  St Cuthbert was depicted with four of his ducks - he introduced what were perhaps the first bird protection laws in the UK to protect eiders and other nesting birds on the Farne Islands. The Victorian stained glass didn't do the eiders justice! 

These birds - with their coo-ing song - are big, fast-flying, marine ducks which eat mussels. And the females pluck the downy feathers from their breasts to line their nests - and that's where eiderdown comes from.

There are birds everywhere you go - if you look out and listen for them.  No doubt most visitors to the museum would have taken away different memories; most people crossing the river would not have noticed the goosanders, and most visitors to Durham Cathedral don't get out their binoculars to examine the birds in the stained glass.

Others would have noticed other things and might have been shocked that I missed the things that were important to them.  Well, that's life, we all experience it through the perspectives of our interest, experience and prejudice.  But seeing the number of birds in 5000-year-old Egyptian hieroglyphs, and thinking of the 7th century St Cuthbert, did make me think about whether we have lost our contact with nature.  I haven't - and I'm sure you haven't either - but as a Society we surely should make sure that we don't and that decision-makers don't either.