Chapter Five of Mr Key’s Book Of Birds, a work in progress.

The pratincole is a type of bird. Beak, feathers, power of flight etcetera etcetera. It is something of a neglected bird. In a poll, when asked to list, with a minimum of thought, the first five birds that came into their heads, nought percent of respondents named the pratincole. And there were a lot of respondents. A lot. It was one of the biggest polls ever conducted by the Pratincolophilia Society, and the results caused its members severe disappointment.

Pratincolophilia is the technical term given to the psychological state of attraction to pratincoles. This can vary from a casual regard and appreciation of the bird, as when a person clomping about in the sort of environment where one might see a pratincole (meadows and marshes in southern Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia) spots one and smiles and says, “Gosh! What a delightful little pratincole!”, to full-blown crazed adoration of the bird. Pratincolophiles at the far end of the spectrum have been known to erect shrines and altars on which they place simulacra of the object of their obsession, made from plaster of Paris or plasticine or wax or marzipan. Occasionally they might obtain a stuffed pratincole from a friendly taxidermist. These people are doolally but harmless, and you might be acquainted with one for years without suspecting the nature of their inner mania, or even that they are maniacs at all. Commonly, the first hint you will be given is when the pratincolophile, speaking in a strangely heightened and excited tone of voice, invites you into the sanctum wherein stands the shrine or altar to their bird. In these circumstances, the best thing to do, having prostrated yourself upon the floor and jabbered a rum litany of nonsense, as bidden, is to pretend you have an urgent appointment, preferably on the other side of town, and to scarper without looking back. Next time you bump into your acquaintance, you would be advised to steer the conversation away from any bird-related topics whatsoever.

It is a curious fact, however, that high spectrum pratincolophiles often display absolutely no interest in any other types of birds. If anything, they seem blitheringly ignorant about birds in general. Boffins have yet to identify the “danger points” which propel the casual or low spectrum pratincolophile, the one clomping about with a pair of binoculars and a healthy interest in other types of birds, to the bonkers level. It may have something to do with brain chemistry, or exposure to airborne toxins, or trauma, though it is difficult to imagine what possible trauma could be occasioned by a little pratincole. Still, the Lord moves in mysterious ways, as we know, and it would not be beyond His wit to think up some horror involving a maddened flock of pratincoles and visit it upon a poor benighted sod.

I am often asked – well, no, I am not often asked, in fact now I think about it, nobody has ever asked me – “Mr Key, if there is such a condition as pratincolophilia, is there a concomitant condition of pratincolophobia?” Should that question ever be put to me, and I hope it will be, one day, before I die, I will have an answer ready.

Chapter Four of Mr Key’s Book Of Birds, a work in progress.

The chiffchaff is a type of bird. It could be said to be a difficult little bird, for reasons which I shall explain. The chiffchaff is almost exactly the same type of bird as the willow warbler, and the difficulty arises because I have already written about the willow warbler. I am not trying to claim that these two birds are identical in all particulars, as that would be foolish, but quite honestly they are so alike that only the most acutely observant among you would be able to tell the difference. It would not surprise me to learn that even a chiffchaff might mistake a willow warbler for a chiffchaff, and vice versa, so what hope can there be for us humans?

Some might argue that birds’ organs of perception act in ways wholly alien to us, and that their apprehension of the world around them is, as a consequence, so vastly different to ours that a chiffchaff will always recognise the chiffchaffness of another chiffchaff, and the willow warblerness of a willow warbler. It would be fruitless to argue the case. All I am trying to say is that as far as we humans are concerned there is precious little difference between the two birds.

So, having devoted a chapter to the willow warbler, I do not want to risk repeating myself by chuntering on about the chiffchaff. Christ knows, the repetitions involved in writing about birds are numerous enough. Beaks, feathers, wings, talons … you are already more than familiar with them, and we have not yet started to consider such things as slashed and savaged semi-digested fieldmice and voles, and other gruesome dishes from the birdy recipe book.

Yet while some repetitiveness is unavoidable in a work such as this, if the reader is to gain a clear understanding of all the different birds, I do not want to type out the same old baloney over and over again. Things would be much easier if similar or in some cases identical types of birds had not been given several different names. Don’t get me started on the green plover, for example. But we must deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be in our wildest dreams. This earthbound realism is particularly – and paradoxically – necessary in the case of birds, which, in the main, tend not to be earthbound at all. One of the first things the amateur will notice about birds is that God has granted them the power of flight. There are of course exceptions, such as the ostrich, a huge and very stupid bird which is tethered by gravity to the earth as decisively as you and me. But the chiffchaff, like the majority of birds, can fly.

Anything else that might usefully be said about the chiffchaff I have already covered in the chapter on the willow warbler. You can trust me on this. It goes without saying that I know more about birds than you do. After all, I am the writer and you – whoever you are – are the reader, and it seems plain as the peas on my fork that if you already knew much about birds you would not feel the need to read this book. You would be out tramping the countryside, a pair of binoculars dangling around your neck, pointing at our feathered friends and showing off by exclaiming, to your companion, “Oh look, Constance, a chiffchaff!”, suspecting that poor Constance thought she was peering at a willow warbler.

Chapter Three of Mr Key’s Book Of Birds, a work in progress.

The corncrake is a type of bird. Its call is raucous and alarming. To gain an idea of how raucous, how alarming, imagine you are fast asleep in bed. Because you are obsessed with the rigours of polar exploration, you sleep, like Roald Amundsen, with your bedroom window wide open in all seasons of the year. Through this open window flies a corncrake, and it comes into land upon your head. Ordinarily, the sensation of its talons digging into your bouffant to steady its perching would awaken you. But you are wearing your thickly-woven woolly swaddling sleep helmet, as recommended by Von Straubenzee. Having suffered from debilitating insomnia for many years, you studied Von Straubenzee’s exciting new discipline of snoozetics. Now, before retiring, you drink a pint of lukewarm milk of magnesia, picture yourself tossing the contents of your brain into a wooden crate and hammering shut the lid of the crate with ten thousand nails, the same number of nails Cornelius Cardew thought sufficient to seal the coffin of imperialism, and you don the sleep helmet before hopping – never climbing, but hopping – into bed. You have found that ever since following Von Straubenzee’s procedures religiously, your sleep is deep and untroubled and not unlike a coma. Thus when the corncrake alights upon your head, and digs its talons into the thick wool of your sleep helmet to steady itself in its perching, you do not feel a thing. You remain fast asleep, content and snug in la-la land.

From its perch, the corncrake surveys its surroundings. If you asked it why it had flown in through the window, and if it was somehow capable of responding in an approximation of human speech so that you understood its reply, it is likely that the corncrake would have absolutely no idea what impelled it. Who knows why birds do what they do? Not even the birds themselves know, for their brains are tiny. Rather than using reason, birds follow the dictates of instinct, what you or I would call “gut feelings”. All we are able to say is that, on this occasion, the corncrake saw the open window and took the opportunity to fly into your bedroom, probably in the hope of finding something to eat. Fortunately, densely-woven wool does not feature as part of a corncrake’s regular diet.

So while the bird rests from the exertions of its flight, perched on your head, it trains its two black fathomless savage inhuman eyes upon your bedroom. It takes in the frieze of martyred saints above the dado rail, the wainscot, the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the rug and the unseemly stains. It takes in the clutter atop the bedside cabinet, the glass of water, the folded spectacles, the scrunched tissue, the anglepoise lamp, the stray button, the biro, the pins, the bowl, the dust, the cardboard carton of pills, the alarm clock, the other button, the little jars, the littler bottles, the nameless thingummy, the biscuit crumbs, the snuffbox, the coinage, the pipe-cleaners, the mud idol, the cotton wool, the toffee apple wrapper, the handkerchief, the string, the puppet, the putty, the duster, the rag, the bus ticket, the scrap of paper, the pocket Bible, the rosary beads, the taffy tin, the bonbon, the monkey snapshot in its frame, the atomiser, the shopping list, the rubber band, the drawing pin, the plaster Madonna and Child statuette, the sophisticated cocktail party invitation, the chewing gum, the gloves, the telephone. Were it a magpie or a jackdaw, rather than a corncrake, it might swoop and snatch up in its beak one of the smaller items on the top of the cabinet and fly out through the window and away, to deposit the stolen gewgaw in its nest. In folk tales and legends, magpies and jackdaws often appear as thieves, the bird equivalents of opportunistic pickpockets, and this characterisation has some basis in brute avian fact. Not so the corncrake, which is not thought of as a pillaging bird. So while it gazes upon the clutter, it remains still, perched upon your sleeping head, and swoops not to snatch booty in its beak.

Stille Nacht. It would be hard to imagine a night more still, more silent than this one. The Von Straubenzee method ensures you make no stentorian snoring noise. The sound of your breathing is almost imperceptible, muffled by the sleep helmet. The corncrake’s breathing is equally quiet. Nothing stirs in your bedroom, and from outside, through the open window, there is not even a breath of wind. It is as if the planet has fallen asleep with you.

I have said that we can have no idea what prompts a bird to do what it does. So I can offer no logical, reasoned explanation for the sudden loud jarring raucous cry of the corncrake on your head. It makes its harsh caw twice, then lifts off, and flies away out of the window. The effect on you is instantaneous and awful. You waken, alarmed, indeed panic-stricken, as if prodded with a burning hot pointy stick. You do not see the corncrake fly away, so you cannot account for the horror by which you are convulsed. Trembling, you clamber out of bed and shuffle to your toilet to piddle, a piddle occasioned by fear. Such is the raucous and alarming call of the corncrake.

The willow warbler is a type of bird. As its name suggests, it hangs around in the vicinity of willow trees and it warbles. In the notebook you keep in a waterproof pochette on a lanyard around your neck, there is probably a page headed Birds Beginning With “W” I Have Seen, on which you have written a list of birds beginning with “W”. When you see one of these birds, you either make a tick next to the name, or cross it out, decisively, with your propelling pencil. In order to achieve this result for the willow warbler, then, you need to be near willow trees, or possibly just one willow tree. And you also need to listen out for warbling.

If there are no willow trees in sight, and you cannot hear anything resembling a warble, you are very unlikely to spot a willow warbler. The first thing to do, then, is to get yourself close to some willows. Do not forget to take your binoculars with you, unless you are blessed with uncommonly piercing vision, in which case you probably have not bothered to buy, or rent, a pair of binoculars.

It may be that you live far, oh! so far, from any willows, and congenital infirmity forbids you from lengthy travel. In such circumstances, you need not give up all hope of spotting a willow warbler. The thing to do is to obtain, and plant in the ground in your garden, some willow saplings. If you do not have a garden, choose a patch of commons as close to your domain as possible, and plant the saplings there. You will, of course, have to wait some years for the saplings to grow into the kind of lush verdant willow trees likely to attract a willow warbler, but while you wait you can spend profitable time reading up on the bird, so you can be all the more certain you know one when you see one. And of course, reading books about birds can be done in the comfort of your armchair, if you have one, and you need not strain your feeble and debilitated limbs. If you do not have an armchair, you can simply sprawl on the floor.

Several other types of birds are known to hang around in the vicinity of willows. This is where your ability to recognise the warbling of a willow warbler becomes critical. Bear in mind, however, that not only do several other types of birds lurk in the willows, but several other types of birds also warble. I am not going to give you a complete, or even a partial, list of such birds, so do not ask. What you need to do is learn the distinctive warbling sound made by the willow warbler, which differentiates it from other warbling birds. There might be some tape recordings in your local lending library, or you can interrogate an ornithologist.

After much diligent study, you should be able to recognise the willow warbler with both your eyes and your ears. What you then have to do is drag yourself towards the patch of willows, peer intently and prick up your ears, and wait for a bird to appear that matches both the sight and sound of the willow warbler insofar as you have rammed those concepts into your head. You can then take your notebook out of its pochette, flip to the required page, and either tick or cross out the name of the bird.

As we have seen, depending on your physical robustness, or lack thereof, this may take many years to accomplish. But, boy oh boy, it will be worth it, with icing on top!

This is a second extract from Mr Key’s Book Of Birds, a work in progress.

The robin is a type of bird. It may be found, in near stasis, perched on a bough. Arrival upon and departure from the bough is accomplished by flight, flight achieved by deployment of the wings (a pair). Not all birds are capable of flight, but the robin is. During perchment, the robin may be captured by placing over it a net attached to one end of a stick. While it is thus prevented from flying away, one can insert a syringe through the net, and stun the robin with a sedative, rendering it unconscious. The net can then be lifted up, and the bird placed in the pocket.

One should ensure that the bough from which the robin is abducted is within a short walking distance of the laboratory or other workspace. If the bird regains consciousness while in the pocket, it will panic, and flap about, and may well exercise its wings sufficiently to fly free, up and away into the boundless sky. Upon arrival at the lab, place the stunned bird on a work-surface and inject it with another dose of the serum, calibrated to keep it away with the fairies for a few hours.

Various activities can now be carried out with the unconscious robin. These may be in the spirit of scientific enquiry, or just larking about. (Technically, the lark is a different type of bird and has nothing to do with larking about, at least not in the present context.) If one intends, shortly before the robin wakes up, its tiny brain woozy, to replace it on its bough, or on a different but nearby bough, it is important that no great harm should come to the bird as a result of the activities, whatever they might be. Small modifications to the unconscious robin are permissible, for example plucking out a handful of its feathers for later examination under a microscope at one’s leisure, or painting it an entirely different colour with a non-toxic pigment. But on no account should one remove, say, its head, for in doing so one will kill the robin and it will not wake from its induced coma.

If carrying out scientific experiments, it is well to bear in mind that the robin is but one type of bird, and one cannot extrapolate from the results of one’s experiments deductions applicable to all types of birds, not even to all robins. It may not be a normal robin. If simply larking about, say by dipping the feet in a pool of ink and then printing a false bird-trail across the bedroom ceiling of a wife one is plotting to drive insane, as in the Patrick Hamilton play Gaslight, one need not bother whether the robin is normal or not. (The villainous husband in Gaslight did not print such a bird-trail, but it is the sort of tactic he might have used, had he had access to an unconscious robin.)

When replacing the bird on its bough, it will need to be propped upright until it is fully awake, otherwise it will topple to the ground due to gravitational force. Use a small structure of interlaced twigs, or some such temporary bolster. Upon waking, the robin will probably bestir itself and use its wings to depart the bough, in flight, up into the sky, until it is quite out of sight, its destination unknown, even to the robin itself.

This is an extract from Mr Key’s Book Of Birds, a work in progress.