The pandemic has brought all kinds of temporary and perhaps some permanent changes. For example, WFH (work from home) has become socially acceptable. Whereas previously the general suspicion was that the typical wage slave, as soon as he or she had supposedly successfully evaded disciplinary supervision in this way, would immediately slow down and shift from turbo gear to idle, the spasm of eternal mistrust among micro-managers has rather loosened.
Now, early on in my "career" I had preferred self-exploitation to exploitation, i.e. no longer having a boss. Since I no longer felt capable of serving in a hierarchy, I simply had to be the company myself. But regardless of whether I'm employed or freelance, my personal experience is that, with the elimination of forced set-up, travel and idle time, I exhaustingly devote significantly more time to the work I've been commissioned to do than ever before. At times it was even clearly too much.
Sometimes my gaze wanders through the window to the outside, whether annoyed by the last Zoom online meeting or on the wings of imagination, and falls on equally winged contemporaries who live out their social Darwinism outside the offices of this world.
And there it arrives, the great tit squad: black cap pulled deep into the face, determined look, disciplined, organised, real no-nonsense types, they seek out the usual food suspicion spots according to plan and systematically and, as it seems, at fixed times in predetermined order. There also seem to be some unusual ones, you never know. For example, they like to hang upside down under window ledges or garden wall projections, where spiders and woodlice find shelter from the vagaries of the weather - but not from the unwavering tit squad. The leader, a strong, decisive type, is in call contact with his troop at all times via snappy, short commands. Nothing is left to chance. You disoriented, confused team leads - here's your role model 😊
And when I deposit the local squirrel's daily pre-cracked walnut (it cannot crack ripe and hard-dried walnuts, but must hungrily bury them until they are soft-rotten) at the agreed hiding place, it is not long before the site's GTS (Great Tit Squad) appears for inspection. No sooner have I moved even a metre or two out of the way than the squad leader heroically checks for safety and accessibility, having previously berated me profusely. Meanwhile, the comrades secure the area from the background. Then it's their turn, one after the other. Keeping order is duty number one..
The discovery of the energy-rich winter food source quickly caught on with the playful blue tits, who, smaller and less well organised, chattering loudly, first have to negotiate who is to enjoy first place. Even the local robin, which is usually only interested in my activities close to the ground, lets itself be animated to nibble on this according to robin tradition rather exotic food. Well, if you have a choice, you go to a fine Italian restaurant, have your palate tickled Thai-style or venture into experimental cuisine.
That site robin is a very special character anyway. When I look at bushes from the inside or clamber around in the trees, it only has a contemptuous peep for me. But woe betide me if I play the ground-hugging berserk. Any earthwork immediately sets it on its heels, raking a path is quite good, planting a little tree even better. But the hit of the winter is turning over the compost heap. It's a veritable feast that is apparently anticipated all year round. I wonder what primal instincts are being appealed to? Perhaps it equates me with a belated offspring of an aurochs or other primeval giant bovine beast, auspiciously buzzing from circulating insects. Hmmm, very flattering. While I'm vigorously swinging the shovel or fork, a cheeky little one enters the fray. "Girl, how am I supposed to work if you're always hopping around between my wellies?" I have to admit that the gender assumption was pure speculation - it just seemed that way to me. It just stands there in front of me and fixes me with a look that conveys something between self-confidence and renitence. At best, I get a sneer around its beak. But despite all the unavoidable, brief proximity, it avoids being photographed with a meaningful reference to the German Data Protection Act (GDPR), which is punishable by law, and escapes. It's no wonder that I haven't made it to the glory of a high-ranking manager of a DAX company when I'm already being shown up by such a little peacock.
Actually, it's only when the weather is tropical that I slowly reach an optimal operating temperature. After a cold and dark winter, however, even a few restrained rays of sunshine tempt me to all kinds of daring outdoor missions in clearly hypothermic conditions. But there are other dangers besides hypothermia. With the first tender rays of spring, the blackbirds are completely off their rocker. Small, black-feathered and horribly agitated flying monsters, they acquiescently accept collateral damage when they chase each other through the botany in fierce territorial battles. If you're not careful and negligently stay within the clearance of the usual flight paths, you can expect to be wing-whipped by a crazed flying dragon. The nerve-wracking shock of a near miss of the blackbird bully is almost routine. Gladiator fights in the back garden, almost as exciting as the tussle for the CDU (The German "Christian Democratic Party", which had only recently fought its own internal turf wars.) party chair. Oh, life can so exciting!
The battles have been fought, the territories distributed, after nest-building and egg-laying, the breeding duties are a little more tranquil, only to suddenly change into unseemly hecticness. At first, I could only make out the vapour trail of the rapid flight path of a projectile, once from right to left, then the other way round. Only those who stand too close to a race track have to turn his head similarly fast. Only the slow motion exposes the culprit: a blackcap in feeding stress. According to the BUND website, the blackcap does not love grass so much as dense "undergrowth". Well, we have plenty of that, and not at all out of negligence, but with deliberate intent: bed & breakfast for birds. And if the terrace flight path is blocked by completely useless and flightless two-legged creatures, the feeding flight path is laid at breakneck speed through this very undergrowth. These parental kamikaze actions make you dizzy just watching them. What parental stress, perhaps not the right sight for young suitors who are toying with the idea of marrying a woman and starting a family with two, always smiling, little children. After all, one might start to wonder.
Not all feathered dinosaur offspring are so fiercely loyal. These are the winter visitors in busy transit: Tail tits, loudly exchanging their travel adventures with each other in a large, chatty group in the winter-bare blackthorn, goldcrests, with their colourful mohawk, occasionally stop here on their spring procession from spruce forest to spruce forest, A flock of linnets, which according to NABU "fly over us in waves in the manner of finches" (oh, I see), did not come here for the winter, but rather to escape from the countryside, where they can no longer live in our systematically cleared fields. Even a pair of wrens in search of a little kingdom prefers small market niches in the cities to the desolate farmland. Year-round marauders get along everywhere: jays, magpies and the occasional crow roam marauding through the front gardens … and now and then a white elephant ... (no, that doesn't belong here) ... The top of sovereignty, however, is the spotted woodpecker, a self-confident and intrepid representative of the working masses, industrious and hard-working, but with no sense of playful frippery.
We also have a bird of paradise. He is not quite so loyal to his location. Or he simply has a larger home territory for his escapades. He doesn't let let his cards show on this topic. As a real poser, our neighbourhood bullfinch always knows how to pose surprisingly and media-effectively at eye level. His purple belly shines in the evening sun, making the bystanders' jaws drop - whoa, dude! Of course, you can't let a pretty boy like that out of your sight for a moment. And so his inconspicuous, wife is never far away. Blinded by the unearthly beauty of this garden jewel, only the trained eye discovers her at near-field distance in the branches. We are talking here about an elderly couple who have been putting on a professional show for years on their tour of the community.
Among the melancholier scenes in the great chorus of the feathered is the pigeon drama, which was even played in several repetitions. The city pigeon as such (as what else?) presumably descends mainly from feral domestic and carrier pigeons, which in turn were bred from the rock pigeon. Aha, I wonder if they were already so clumsy back then? Or are the mad blunderers of the air rather the result of a decadent civilizational decline? I have to admit it: Nesting sites are scarce. The housing shortage in cities and rural areas is endemic and affects everyone. But is that reason enough to entrust one's brood in unsecured nests that are non-professionally crafted? In a bamboo grove, for example, where the next storm will literally catapult out the clutch of eggs together with the fast breeder? There the once hopeful offspring lay in the sunlight after the storm: naked and lifeless. Lack of due diligence in building a house has ended many a young life all too soon 😞
An early encounter on a Sunday morning jog before dew and day has brought me closer to the wild boar of the skies - or not. Rooks casually greet me every Sunday, snidely with their Working Song: "We scavenge the bins till no one else wins. Our chieftain is called Black Mighty Cloak. ... (in between, I couldn't understand anything because of the steam turbine) ... we rest in the giant oak." was what I thought I could make out from their chanting as I approached - in rookish language, of course. But I’m well advised better not to stop. As in such case I am looked at disparagingly from top to bottom: "What do you want here, you laughing stock? Get the f*** out of here. Otherwise, I'll give you some friendly knock between your horns!"
Oh, oh, am I no longer up to the harsh reality out there after two years of "home office"? But giving up is not an option. I defiantly begin my personal resocialisation programme 😊
Hello world, here I come
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