Out of a near cloudless sky comes a low, hornet-like drone, announcing the arrival of a flyer many times bigger than any of the neighbourhood birds. It is a localised summer regular and, over decades, I have learned to narrow down this particular sound to two similar species.
More than a century ago, a previous country diarist watched and listened as I do. The Cheshire naturalist TA Coward observed the first flying machines and their impact on birds. By the time he came to write his column in 1919, he noted: “A few years ago, the appearance of an aeroplane caused great consternation among these lesser flyers; rooks, pigeons, starlings, partridges and others scattered and took cover, long before our less keen eyes had spotted the approaching machine. Now they are indifferent.”
And so it is today. The approaching plane might have scared the Unterhose off the Luftwaffe, but it shows no sign of diverting the flightpath of fly-catching starlings. The Shuttleworth aerodrome is just four miles as the crow flies, and it is the norm to see summer displays of vintage aircraft. The Spitfire or Hurricane comes into view at buzzard height, and my limited reading tells me the curve in the wings pinpoints a Spitfire.
Coward pondered the radical change in bird behaviour he had witnessed within a short space of time: “Presumably they had learned that this stiff-winged, noisy creature is not a gliding hawk, and that it does not swoop upon or strike down any of their kind. But does each bird learn this lesson in its youth, or is there an acquired hereditary knowledge?” Such a question exercised me much of last month, when robins nesting in the garden flew within arm’s length many times every day to feed their young. When do birds work out that some big beasts have no predatory intent?
High above the Spitfire, white wisps trail across the sky. The pandemic restored our blue virginity and offered a reset. Humanity never took it. Ever more jets fly today, pumping out the climate-wrecking gases that present the true danger to birds and people alike.
