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Clothed in light

29 January 2016 by Simon Barnes 12 Comments

Is this the most exotic bird in the world? It took command of the highest point in a bare tree 15 feet from the ground, where it was skewered by a beam of sunlight. It looked as if it was striking a pose in a spotlight.

It was a bright shining purple spangled with dancing gold, but it didn’t stay that way for long. The bird was in motion all the time, looking this way and that, and with each movement the purple shifted to a shimmering green and then back again, strobing from colour to colour in a dance of living light.

It was a starling, of course, not a bird famous for the luxuriance of its plumage. In most lights they are pretty dull, a freckled black, and besides, they are still common enough to be taken for granted — much as lapwings used to be.

Most of the colour in most birds comes not from pigment but from light, refracted through the feathers, just as adding a drop of oil to a dirty city puddle transforms it into a world of rainbows. This explains why an apparently gaudy bird can vanish before your eyes, as if snuffed out like a candle. In some lights and from angles a kingfisher can look black: I’m convinced that many people who long to see a kingfisher have already seen one without knowing it.

But here was a bird doing the exact opposite: a humdrum bird putting on a coat of many colours and letting the sunlight do the work for him. There’s a line in the psalms praising God “who coverest thyself with light as with a garment”.

The 17th century mystic Thomas Traherne (subject of a song by the Incredible String Band) wrote: “You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world.”

But here, without mysticism or poetry or religion, was a bird who really was clothed in light. As if it was the most natural thing in the world.

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Posted in Wildblog

Comments

  1. Ken Roberts says

    29 January 2016 at 6:32 pm

    Haven’t seen a starling for ages, Simon, and never as you describe this one! But am continually surprised and enamoured by the striking image of our ubiquitous magpies, which, I guess, if they were rarer would impress us even more!!??

    Regards,

    Ken Roberts. (Truro)

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      20 May 2016 at 4:37 pm

      A magpie caught in a certain light is the most astonishing blue, is it not?

      Reply
  2. lizsutton26 says

    29 January 2016 at 8:00 pm

    Fabulous birds.

    Reply
  3. Hilda Denham says

    30 January 2016 at 6:17 am

    How lovely, how inspiring, thank Simon. Wonderful way to start the day.
    Hilda

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      20 May 2016 at 4:37 pm

      Thank you for those kind words.

      Reply
  4. Michael John Clark says

    30 January 2016 at 9:17 pm

    Wee Tam and Big Huge! Still have the Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter somewhere. Wonderfully pretentious days of the late sixties. Now I shall recall them when I see a starling in my garden. Thanks once again Mr Barnes

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      20 May 2016 at 4:38 pm

      The String Band are always worth going back to, if only for the pain of nostalgia.

      Reply
  5. Anthony Bird says

    31 January 2016 at 11:41 am

    A wonderful picture you drew for me, Simon, and I agree with Ken, the Magpie has a wonderful colour scheme.

    Reply
  6. Olly says

    31 January 2016 at 9:19 pm

    The Starling has got to be one of the most under-appreciated and under-rated birds in the world. Stunning to look at; full of character; amazing mimicry; and the jewel in the crown – the murmurations.

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      20 May 2016 at 4:38 pm

      Couldn’t agree more.

      Reply
  7. Patrick Ball says

    10 February 2016 at 9:21 am

    Hello Simon Thank you so much for your recent post about The Great Fen. As a Yorkshire couple who retired and followed our daughters migration south five years ago we now live close to this reserve. We have grown to love the light of East Anglia and the wild open spaces and are blessed by so many reserves to visit down here.
    Your visit prompted us to revisit this area. We were rewarded with a good sighting of a Chinese water deer at Woodwalton Fen so lucky to see it in the mid-afternoon sun. An hour later we stopped by the road side near the new hide at Holme Fen and for nearly an hour watched two Short-Eared owls hunting low over the fields until the sun finally went and they flew off. Many thanks it was a wonderful afternoon!

    Reply
    • Simon Barnes says

      20 May 2016 at 4:41 pm

      Thank you so much for telling me about this. A great day out indeed.

      Reply

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