The French windows in the study were open and a sparrow flew in. It perched on a standard lamp, and when I tried to shoo it out again it flew across to the bookshelves and found a hiding place high among the books where I couldn’t get at it.
We don’t see many sparrows these days. Loss of habitat, pesticides, cats? Who knows, but they have certainly become scarce round here, and this one didn’t look too well. Had it flown indoors to have a rest, or even to die? Dunno, but there’s something rather alarming about having a wild creature in your room, even a tiny and possibly sick one, and I needed to do something about it.
I had a long-handled brush thing for sweeping cobwebs away from corners and ceilings, and started poking about among the shelved books to try and shift the little visitor. It was a soft brush which I thought wouldn’t do any harm if it touched the creature, but when it did the sparrow simply flew across the room and took up a new position on top of the clock on the wall, looking at me with its mad bird’s eyes. I tried cajoling it, shouting at it and flapping my arms up and down to demonstrate what it ought to be doing, but it just sat there.
I wielded the brush again, trying to manoeuvre the sparrow towards the French windows, but it just flew back across the room and found another hiding place in the bookshelves. I had work to do and tried to get on with it, hoping that the bird would fly out of its own accord, but it didn’t, and I found that I couldn’t settle to my writing knowing that I had an avian observer only a couple of feet away. This went on for quite some time.
At one stage I went out into the back garden and tried to lure the bird out by making what I hoped might be seductive sparrow-like noises. God knows what the neighbours must have thought if they’d witnessed such a strange performance, but this didn’t work either. I went back inside and just sort of paced about, wondering what else I could do.
Soon I needed to pee, and this was tricky because if the bird flew away while I was out of the room how could I be sure that it had gone? It was adept at concealing itself. So I went upstairs to the loo, closing the study door behind me reckoning that at least it couldn’t get into any other part of the house, and when I returned all seemed calm. Perhaps the bird had gone, but I eventually spotted the little bastard still there amongst the books. Another long stand-off ensued.
By now it was starting to get dark and a good deal cooler, and I wanted to close the French windows and lock up but didn’t like to shut the bird in overnight, so out came the brush again, now applied much more vigorously, and with a good deal more poking and shouting the bird did eventually go. It didn’t seem to be flying very convincingly as it disappeared into the sunset, but what can you do?
And that, dear Editor, is why my manuscript is late.
