The Company of Birds
Here you are by the bench that looks out over the trees and fields of Darland Banks. You can relax whilst we tell you the first story from Victory Care Home.
This story is about Victory’s very own Chris Packham, also known as “Bird Man John.”
One morning the residents were all chatting in the lounge about how much they love wildlife. They keep the feeders full of seeds and nuts for the birds, and the squirrels eat there too. They see jackdaws and magpies feeding as well as crows and songbirds. They talk about how each year the care home releases 20 butterflies into the garden. How one time there were two chrysalis that they named Charles and Camilla, and Charles the butterfly hatched during the new King’s coronation!
One resident told everyone about how she believes her dog who passed away, came back to visit her as a pigeon. How the pigeon flew in the room through the door that her dog always used to come in through!
They talk about a parrot owned by a local resident who let it fly freely around Luton Rec. It flew away one time and was found in a tree in the grounds of Victory – and how they had to coax it down with food from the kitchen. How the parrot still sometimes comes back to visit them.
Then the conversation turned to how wonderful it would be to be able to fly.
Christina remembered her dreams of flying over castles, from a high bank in medieval times, when she saw a field with hundreds of Canadian geese waiting to migrate.
This inspires everyone - they talk about where they would fly if they could- back home to South Africa, or to Fife or Castle Douglas in Scotland to see family, or to Exeter in Devon - full of wildlife of all kinds, to South Wales - full of happy childhood memories, or to Australia to visit a brother.
Bird Man John joins them, he doesn’t often join in their conversations, but they are talking about birds, his favourite subject. John tells them that he has heard and seen nightingales here - and someone remembers that they say the nightingale is precious because its song is the most beautiful song you could ever hear and that it is the nightingale that sings the sunup in the morning.
Birdman John tells them about how this place is a massive bird migration superhighway used by millions of birds travelling between the Arctic and Africa.
And he says, in the winter, the redwings come here from Scandinavia to feast on sloe berries, although less so now as climate change has made it milder, so they sometimes stay north.
The other residents are inspired by the birds and their long journeys and talk about how courageous the little birds are.
Bird Man John leaves them to walk to the bench at number 6 on our map. He knows it is a good place to have a stop if you are on a long walk and there is quite a view. You can see hundreds of thousands of birds from up there
Meanwhile back at Victory Care Home, the residents talk about how they’d love to join John in Darland Banks but how not everyone can walk so far or up such steep paths. They can’t fly like the birds either… but they can sing! And that is when the idea for forming a choir comes about- - and they find a song about birds and begin to practise. They even decide on a name for their choir:
“We are the Victory Nightingales”
…they say with pride, after they’ve had a few rehearsals and are ready to sing to the staff and visitors. John isn’t there, he’s on his bench with his binoculars, but never mind they say, they can sing it to him again another day
So, the Victory Nightingales begin to sing:
Little bird on my window,
Won’t you sing me a song?
As you fly over meadows
Won’t you bring me along?
There are beautiful flowers
To be seen from up high,
Won’t you please take me with you,
Little bird as you fly.
Little bird on my window
May your song never end,
I will tell you a secret,
You're my very best friend.
There is something about that song. Maybe because it is sung with such joy and fun in it, the song carries on the wind out of the Victory Care Home, drifts over rooftops and roads, follows the 100 Steps and the steep path up to Darland Banks where it reaches the ears of Birdman John. He smiles.
And it seems like maybe the birds hear it too, because there are flocks of birds dancing in spirals in a perfect blue sky, as if in celebration.
And the strange thing is, that night, every one of the residents dreamt of flying, and in their dreams, they travelled back to South Africa, and Scotland and Devon and all those other places, flying far and fast, just like the migrating birds, and everyone woke up feeling especially hungry, and asked for extra toast at breakfast.
This all happened a little while ago, but the residents are still singing and telling each other stories to this day.
As for Bird Man John, he can still be seen out on Darland Banks and elsewhere, happy in the company of birds.
And now you know, if you didn’t already, that Luton is full of birds. And people who take care of them.
So that’s the end of this story, but we’d love to ask you to think about this: if you could fly- where would you go? And if you look up right now- what do you see?
In Victory Care Home Christine told us ““When a crow flies away you should whisper a kindness to him.” So, let’s say something kind to our friend Feathers… and then follow him to the next stop…
