The Birds

There are five species of birds that we have a lot of around here. There's the ubiquitous pigeons which make the most monotonous noise ever; cu-coo-cu, repeatedly, and it's about as irritating as an alarm clock that you can't turn off. If I could get my hands on these blighters I would gladly throw them across the room. We have zillions of sparrows whose chirruping is considerably more varied and cheerful. Several hooded crows, with their caw-caw cackle as they fly past the window, back and forth every morning. And squillions of swifts. I have identified two different types so far; the alpine swift, with the cream coloured breast, and the common swift. These fellows are just passing through on their way to or from Africa and Northern Europe. They make a spectacular display of flying from the mid-afternoon to evening as they swoop and glide whilst catching insects in mid-air. They seem to do this stunt flying for fun as well, dive-bombing each other or grouping into squadrons that zoom around in formation, dodging buildings.

None of them pay any attention to the humans.