Delicate air (which gives delight . . .)

When Uncle Johnny, Newman and Barnaby came to live here in Northumberland several years ago, there was a neat little cup of a mud nest under the eaves. Though they hoped to see its owners return to breed in it, no one ever came to claim it and then last summer its remains were lost in the building work for the extra bunkhouse. It was sad that the remnants of what had been a sign of the house being blessed by such special creatures were removed permanently, but that seemed to be that.

What utter joy then, when last week we realised that our little homestead had at last been blessed by a family of house martins who, in what seemed like an eye’s blink, had manufactured a robust, brown home and filled it with twittering offspring.  Hidden beneath the overhanging wooden eaves, if you stand by the house wall and look up you can easily see the perfectly-formed nest so well protected from the elements and, at certain times of the day, watch lots of comings-and-goings accompanied by loud chattering. Though Kemo Sabe’s attempts at photography are pretty woeful, we live in hope of a better shot. It is heartening to think that these lovely birds, who spent the winter thousands of miles to the south of our coastal community, have chosen us for this, their most significant life event – creating a new family. I remember hearing that Banquo, Macbeth’s dear friend, a good man who knows what goodness looks like and says so even when others are blinded by evil, sees the house martins nesting at Macbeth’s castle. He can seem silly when he pays the birds homage, saying that wherever such as they choose to raise their young things are okay. But he is right and the irony is not lost. The innocence of the creatures which choose us for their bedfellows is an inspiration and call to action.  This year, next door’s seagulls have removed themselves to our chimney breast, the spikes having proved too much for them at last. Today, the attentive herring gull parents revealed three tiny chicks, newly-hatched; such a prolific, successful pairing.  Such joy accrues from the bird-life round here, no matter whether mundane, like the gulls, or magic, like the martins. As Banquo himself says:

This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.

What have we done to deserve this, I ask?