Overly Concerned With Its Appearance

Those big Freds remind Myself of teenagers - Overly concerned with their appearance and quite oblivious to the fact that anyone else has a life of their own.

One demands food of Him when He goes out to feed the chickens each morning. There He is, holding open the pen with one hand and trying to keep Our chickens at bay with a foot as He empties the food into their pot while they are crawling over each other and Him as though they haven't eaten in weeks. The Fred stands 6 inches away, fixing proceedings with a beady and evil eye, stamping on the ground if it thinks it is being kept waiting, and finally grunting at Him to hurry up. As though the only thing He has to do in His life is to feed it.

But they are supremely beautiful at this time of year and each one is different. Some have big white collars, others a white streak surrounded by iridescent green on their head. One which comes every day into My garden is much darker than the rest with pale greenish-grey streaks to its wings and a fluffy russet rear. And another has the longest tail feathers ever seen. The really pugnacious Fred is almost spotty on its back with each dark brown feather outlined in gold. But every one sports sticky-up ear feathers and bright red wobbly bits around and under their eyes. (Much, much too much make-up on their faces.)

This morning I was keeping watch from My conservatory as the weather was Not Nice and Most Inclement. There was one up on the bird table, hammering away at the feeder to get the remains of the seed. Since it was rather windy it was struggling to maintain its hold on the edge of the tray and the feeder kept swinging around in a distinctly threatening manner. After it had had its feathers severely ruffled and had been hit on the head a few times it decided to eat from the bottom of the tray instead. So it bent over, head down tail up. Sadly there was a sharp gust of wind at that very moment and the feeder caught it neatly on the rear, sending it somersaulting to the ground. Oh boy, was it cross. Shook itself hard and stalked off, beak in the air, daring the other birds to snigger.

As Myself said, Overly concerned with its own appearance.