Revenge of the Passive Motorcycle upon the Woodland Alliance

I happened to be in my shed this morning, at an unfeasibly early hour.
Pondering the meaning of life and the intricacies of the curves of
fibreglass bellypans, having a coffee and a *** and waiting for the
light to improve a little before laying up another layer, I was at
peace with the world.

A movement caught my eye - a movement where there would normally be
none. In the Motorcycle Limbo, where POS SOBs go to await their
passing into a new form and where nothing generally moves, bar the
grass rustling up through the rusting spokes. There was a fluttering,
there was. A fluttering and a flitting, followed by a perching and a
preening.

It's that time of year, isn't it - when the the little feathery
fuckers get all out of shape, working on their displays, trying harder
to attract mates than Champ on a one-nighter in Stringfellow's.

There was an eternal triangle a'perched on Spike the ratbike: female
on the tank, a male on each handlebar. A trio of dunnocks, no less.
Hedge sparrows, you might know them as - as LBJs(1) you will certainly
have seen them.

THey're funny little fuckers, yer dunnocks. They don't mind sharing,
you see. It isn't unusual for a female to take more than one mate,
she being of the polyandrous persuasion. The males aren't too keen on
coming second (so to speak) and will display their little wings off
trying to get into the prime passerine pumping position, so I settled
down into a comfy lean on my lathe to watch the goings-on from four
feet away.

THe male on the left bar kicked it off, twittering with a lifted tail
and spread wings, his rival on the right replied with a pirouetting
dance and some heavy foot-stamping. The female watched them with
interest, alternately bowing and jumping, clattering her dainty claws
on the tank.

This continued for a couple of minutes, the males getting more frantic
and more enthusiastic all the while. She played up to them,
encouraging them to new heights of abandon, like a Goth Burd in a
snowy field, leading to loss of bladder control.

Vying for her attention, both males flapped furiously, alternating
hovering and hopping with dancing and gyrating. Building up a fine
old froth, they were ... until ...

... a new i-player entered the arena.


You know how all the LBJs look the same? Well, they all look the same
to the LBJs, too. At the height of a pirouetting flutter, the male on
the left bar caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, didn't he?
Little Ballistic Job, he turned into. Seizing the lower rim of the
mirror in his claws, he started to peck viciously at his reflection,
screeching as desperately as an i*** who wakes up to find his
foreskin has regrown.

Leaving his clawhold on the mirror rim, he tried to scamper closer to
his imagined rival, only to slide back down the inclined glass, quite
rapidly. Suddenly, with an equally enraged fluttering, he was joined
by his rival, as incensed as the first bird. Sreeching the dunnock
equivalent of "We was here first, you can FRO!" or "She'll take two,
but three's a crowd!" they went at the mirror hell for leather.

Of course, as soon as two new birds appeared in the mirror, they both
lost it altogether and feathers started to literally fly. One of them
even flew around to the back of the mirror and hovering, pecked as
violently as he could at the black plastic casing.


The female watched all this going on, immobile. Frozen in position,
she looked horrified as both her putative mates started shedding
feathers in a futile attack on i-birds. Tapped her dainty foot, she
did. Pursed her beak and narrowed her eyes, all to no avail - the
blokes were ripping into the mirror like a pair of pedants into a
know-nowt newbie.

I could see her body language changing, as she put all her feathers
back in order, looked around - and fucked off. Reaching a decision,
she turned like a Bear-ex: she shrugged her shoulders, shook her head,
flexed her wings and flew off ... to join another female on the fence.


The males ended up as a panting ball of feathers in the grass, the
females flew off together, into the rising sun which was just coming
over the trees. Dumb fucks, these dunnocks, eh?


1. Little Brown Jobs

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Pip: B12
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