Love is everywhere

Well, after a month of very heavy studying followed by exams, I am back. I am sure my one reader will be as pleased as I am. Strange though it may seem I enjoy academic work – it seems to satisfy something and gives me a sense of fulfilment.

But what I really wanted to write about was something I saw the other day while driving to work. What caught my eye, on the road ahead of me, was a group of three black crows on the road trying to get at something, which I guessed was some “road kill”. What they were trying to pick up was very small and I immediately thought it might be a small bird killed by a passing motor car. Then my attention was drawn to a small shape – a sparrow – attacking the crows and trying to drive them away. They were ducking and weaving to avoid the little “dive bomber”. This was a contest the sparrow could not win – one against three was not a fair contest. Sure enough the sparrow was diverted by one crow and one of the other two immediately scooped up the little carcass and flew off followed by the other crows. I saw the sparrow fly back to where, presumably its mate, had been killed and then commence a fruitless pursuit of the crows.

The whole episode was over in a minute or so. I know it was a sparrow that was killed because as I drove passed I looked down as saw a few feathers marking the spot. It is difficult for me not to assume that the surviving sparrow was trying to defend the body of its mate from being eaten by the crows.

We are told never to anthropomorphise the lives of animals – never to assume that human like attributes are present in animals – you see to do so is not “scientific”. But to me it makes perfect sense to do it, after all we are animals too, aren’t we?

I like to think that love IS actually everywhere, even in a bird. Swans are known to mate for life and to grieve over the loss of a mate. If a swan can why can’t a sparrow?