When I was a little boy growing up on the banks of the Nile in Sudan, my favourite bird was the weaver bird. The locals called them birds of paradise because they’re beautiful colours, and they weave their little nests up in the trees. Sometimes a nest will fall down and the kids will play football with it. But eight-year-old me had so many questions: where do they go for six months of the year? How do they take their food with them? A lot of farmers in Africa would time the sowing of their seeds by the arrival of particular birds, knowing that when they leave, that’s harvest time. We all used to be much more connected to nature at one point, and I think it’s sad how little most people these days get outdoors.
People are sometimes surprised when I say my favourite bird in Britain is the starling. But just look at them! Have you ever noticed that those speckles on their chests are tiny little love hearts? Or that they can fly in murmurations of 50,000 birds and they never bump into each other? They’re also fantastic mimics: you can teach them phrases, like a parrot. I have a woodburning stove where I live on the west coast of Scotland, and one day I opened it and heard what I thought was the sound of a cow and an oystercatcher emanating from the chimney. Lo and behold, it was a starling.
