Thursday 1 March 2018

The Golden Hour February 2017


I stood at one end of an earth bare track that passes through a copse, the base to a tunnel of twigs formed by overarching cherry tree branches. It is here that Hawfinches come on a daily quest for a particular favourite, to seek out the remaining hard stone centres of cherries in the thick leaf litter below the trees, the sweet flesh long ago rotted and dissolved into the earth. The Hawfinches have no competition as only their massive specialised bills can crack the stones to extract the kernel they desire, applying a pressure of up to fifty kilos to the dark stones which split with an audible crack.

I can hear Hawfinches in the trees, the birds making a hard ticking sound, as when you suck tongue against teeth and at first that is all, but occasionally a stocky, truncated silhouette pauses against the lattice work of sky and twigs above, a distinctive outline that slips away in the next moment.

Stillness and silence are pre-requisites for any descent of a Hawfinch to the ground. After a long wait a male drops from a tree and stands erect on the earth, ready to flee at the merest intimation of danger.


Its uncertainty subsides and the quest for a cherry stone commences as it hops through the leaves on short stiff legs, picking up a stone to manipulate in its bill, assessing the size and weight, turning it, feeling it with its tongue. Some are rejected but if acceptable the stone is manouevred to lie across the lower mandible and held firmly in place by the upper mandible.The pressure points at the base of each mandible then apply the required force to shatter the stone.

A male Hawfinch possesses great beauty of plumage but its appearance brings a fascination  that speaks of something less tangible. It is grotesquely imbalanced by a huge head containing the muscular and skeletal adaptations necessary to apply such formidable pressure through a similarly disproportionate bill, the mandibles a pair of huge calipers,  coloured white like any crab's claw found bleached and dessicated on the tideline. Like some mis-shapen stump, thick at one end and thin at the other, the Hawfinch is all bill and head narrowing into a smaller body and short tail,



It is the eye however that draws you in. No soft, benign dark depth regards the world as with a Robin but a pale staring orb with a centred black iris, the eye encased by a thick finger of black feathering. Intimidatory and uncompromising under a flat golden crown, the eye both mesmerises and repulses by way of its reptilian aspect.



After feeding on the dry cherry kernels the Hawfinch comes to quench his thirst at a puddle and the huge head, bent low to the water, is burnished by the light of the morning sun to a golden chestnut and confronted by a reflection in the still water that is hardly less colourful, as the feathers of the head merge into a shawl of softest grey around the neck. Its back is the  brown of rich chocolate while breast and flanks are plumbeous pink. Its natural pastel shaded feathers mimic the contrived colours of soft furnishings in an expensive store and are forever immaculate.

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