Bird song and bluebells

As I took Moss for a walk this morning the woods were loud with bird song.  I guess it’s a territorial thing.  The floor of the woods was bright green and blue - the bluebells are flowering at last!  It reminded me of a family photo I’d come across recently.

The image is of my Granny, Edith Hilda Kent with the oldest of her three children, Percy and my Grandfather, Walter Lewis Kent.  In the image Granny is holding an extravagantly large bunch of bluebells as she looks down fondly at her first-born, Uncle Percy. 

As children we stayed with Granny regularly, she was a real country woman.  She always took us out for walks with her black Labrador, Sweep.  He was very steady and liked to sniff and pee a lot, so progress was sometimes quite slow.   Granny relished teaching us about bird song and wild plants. 

Recently one of my friends told me that there’s an App especially for identifying bird song, all you need to do is hold your phone up and it immediately tells you exactly which bird it is.  I confess, it made me feel a bit sad, it was as though there’s no longer any need for Granny’s rural wisdom any more. 

Then I looked at the photo again and realised that Granny and her young family were doing exactly what I did today, but about one hundred years ago, it was reassuring.

Photo:  Granny with her young family taken 1920/30, look at the abundance of bluebells.