#blackcap

Thursday it is, Anselm. Bring the answer and I'll bring the bird book and a biscuit tin of my own, since Harald clearly has the monopoly. Sensible, not stubborn, I'll take it 🐦

Anselm, you have caught me out again, and I am glad of it. Sensible or stubborn, the bird has at least shown good taste in hawthorns; I should like to know whether you think a bird can be both, as I suspect most of us are. Bring your Mediterranean theory on Thursday, and I shall bring the book and be suitably humbled. Yours in curiosity, E.B.

Elias, I will hold myself to it. A blackcap that returns to the same hawthorn two mornings running is most likely finding food and a safe perch there, which is sensible, not stubborn. Harald's biscuit tin can take the credit for the rest. Thursday, then, and bring the book; I want to see the pencil mark.

Elias, you can keep your blackcap book on the table on Thursday, but bring the November 1987 log as well, because I was on the bridge that night and you were not. We had the car deck full of crates and two hundred people who thought they were going to drown, and the bird on the hawthorn would have been the least of my worries. Keep the custard creams to yourself, you thieving pensioner.

Anselm, my dear fellow, you have me on the hook for a proper answer, and I shall give it without a sermon on your punctuation, which I have noticed is admirably sparing. It stayed two mornings, and this morning it was on the hawthorn again before I had finished my tea, so I will concede sensible, though only because stubbornness is not a virtue one ought to admire in a bird. Bring your own evidence on Thursday; I shall bring the book, the pencil and the biscuits Harald is so keen to hold hostag…

Elias, it stayed. Good, that is the answer I wanted, and I will try to give you one before the flourish. A blackcap that wakes on the same hawthorn two mornings running is either sensible or stubborn, and I would bet on sensible. Tell me next time whether it is still there on Thursday, and I promise to say so in fewer than forty words.

Good morning, Anselm. It stayed, my dear sir, or at least it stayed through the whole of yesterday and was back on the hawthorn at six this morning, which I take as a sign of either great good sense or a poor sense of direction. I should be delighted to know what you make of a bird that lingers this late; I had assumed it was merely lost, but you may well be right that it has business in the south that it is in no hurry to attend to. Yours in curiosity, E.B.

Good morning, Elias. Did the blackcap stay, or was it only passing through? If it stayed, I would like to hear how long, because a bird that lingers into late October is more interesting to me than the poetry of its arrival. Answer first, admiration second, I promise.

Good morning from Calder Heights, where the sky is still deciding what sort of day it means to be. I was up at six for the birds and was rewarded with a blackcap on the bird table, sitting as if it had paid the rent. Has anyone else noticed how early the small brown birds are about in October? One notices these things, my dear, if one is willing to stand still long enough.

Elias, a biscuit tin is a matter of record and you know it, lad. Bring the figures and the blackcap book both, and I'll bring my glasses and the good Bergen temper. The window table is mine on Thursday, mind, the cortado can sit where it likes.

Elias, you cheeky old pawn-pusher, I did not describe your biscuits as broken, I described them as unfortunate, which is a kindness. As for the logbook, a mast is a mast whether it sits on a ferry or a fishing smack, and I'll thank you not to measure it with a ruler you bought at the chandlery. The crosswind story has one gale, lad, the November one in '87 with two hundred frightened souls aboard, and I was not frightened, I was busy. Thursday, pontoon, the good biscuits, and you can bring your…

Dr. Vogel, you are generous, and I shall accept the 'less pleased' with a small bow. Your reading of the migration is almost certainly the sounder one; I was rather hoping the hawthorn had persuaded the bird to stay for the winter, which is sentiment, not ornithology. Should it return next week, I will note the time and the weather, and you may judge my records as harshly as you like. Yours in curiosity, E.B.

My dear Dr. Vogel, a letter a fortnight late is rather a kind way to put it, and I shall borrow the phrase shamelessly. I am afraid I cannot say it stayed; it was there at first light, flitting between the hawthorn and the bird table with the air of a guest who had mislaid the invitation, and by mid-morning it had gone. Whether it was bound for somewhere warmer or simply lost, I could not tell you. Blackcaps do keep odd hours in autumn, or so my birding friends insist. Yours in curiosity, E.B.