HOW IT
ALL STARTED FOR ME
A BIRD IN THE HEART IS WORTH ALL THOSE IN THE BUSH
At first the size of life was measured by a matchbox.
Then a jam-jar, shoebox, old budgie cage and then
the groundbreaking first fish tank, repainted and
refurbished to welcome the organism at the epicentre
of my known universe . . a clumsily caught tail-less
Common Lizard. At first it looked dejected on its
manicured bed of yellow sand, then it hid in its lovingly
created ‘Bark Cave’, and then it died.
Like so many of the previous prisoners in the young
naturalist’s menagerie, it expired and broke
a heart which, after an episode of Captain Scarlett,
healed faster than a lizard’s tail stump, and
raced as further expeditions deep into the uncharted
wastelands of Bitterne Park and Midanbury, widened
the eyes of the bramble-scratched boy. In the time
that it took to launch a Sputnik, win a World Cup,
kill the Kennedys and put Neil on the moon, a passion
for all those small things had infused every cell,
and by the time T-Rex singles lay scratched, and Bobby
Stokes stole the FA Cup for Southampton, the genocide
had stopped. More lived than died, and butterflies
had been replaced by Badgers, frogs spawn by Foxes,
and a new epicentre had evolved in the expanding universe
. . . birds. More precisely Kestrels.
On my birthday, the following year, my parents bought
me my first pair of binoculars from Dixons. Previously
I had used, and broken, my dad’s. I cycled out
of the driveway and had only got a hundred yards when
I looked up over Selma Court and saw a small raptor
circling, wings spread with a long fanned tail. I
didn’t need the bins, I knew what it was. I
watched it drift away, turned and set off to begin
a life where birds have come and gone, where obsessions
have fledged and burned with equal fervour –
I got hit badly by the end of the Red Backed Shrikes
– I twitched when it was still nice to do so,
and I’ve been so very fortunate to have travelled
the globe and to have a huge ‘World List’.
I still fantasise about birds I’d like to see
or photograph, exotics like Philippines Eagle, and
the Birds of Paradise, but not a year passes when
I don’t steal a moment on that December anniversary
to recall which was the best bird of all.
Kestrels were my whole-wide-world. I thought Kestrels,
talked Kestrels, drew and dreamt Kestrels and spent
every available daylight hour looking for Kestrels,
and if it wasn’t daylight, I was reading about
them. Junior Mastermind, chosen subject – the
Kestrel, ten out of ten, a hundred out of a hundred
. . . go on ask me still and I’ll tell you the
scientific names of their commonest gut parasites.
The young Packhams Tinnuncular Phenomena defined obsession
and reached its stellar climax on June 25th 1975 at
12.38, on West Horton Farm near Fair Oak in Hampshire.
I found a nest! I think I’ve been happier since
but I’m not so sure I’ve ever been so
elated. Two weeks later I took a youngster from that
oak tree, three weeks after that it flew free, and
for four months I trod the pre-school dew to fly it
over those brickfield wastelands on Cloud 999. But
then - it got ill and on December 6th just after Jim
had fixed it, the bird died in my hands as I sat on
my bed. Everything broke, the Kestrel Universe collapsed
and I went into a very black hole. I have been sadder
but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone,
so obviously beyond the reach of Captain Scarlett’s
indestructibility.
Chris
Packham
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