One of the things that I noticed about many of the people that I met when we lived in England was that they were bird lovers...bird watchers...had bird tea cups, tablecloths, figurines, and multiple yard feeders. Almost every British person I knew had a small set of binoculars on standby in case a rare, yellow tailed plumata, or speckled, trumpeting breward happened to fly by. (Of course I've made these names up as the only real bird I ever recognized in England was Tweety from Looney Tunes cartoons) I eventually came to associate London with the gray pigeons of Trafalgar Square. Visiting was always like a scene from "The Birds". It was difficult to walk because there were so many birds. They flew so close to my head that I swore their wings parted my hair in an entirely different direction. The robins there, well they didn't look like robins to me at all. I expected full, orange breasted, large, brown birds with irritable bowel syndrome (well they always seemed to have that precious malfunction while sitting in the oak above my mustang anyway) But these were tiny little brown chicks. (Maybe they were anorexic, or lacked color because the sun rarely shone..I best duck before my husband throws something at me...he's so very British) Sometimes, in our cottage garden, I would catch sight of a most beautiful little yellow bird (unfortunately it was not Tweety) and wander out to get a better look (it would have helped had I not had the binoculars backwards) A remarkable thing that I noticed was that the birds didn't seem to fear humans or tend to attack so much there as they did in the US (where I lived anyway, they either feared you or tried to peck your eyes out) I recall a time when I was quite young skating along the walk when down swooped the biggest blue jay ever. (maybe it was a pterodactyl, I'm still not certain) At the time I figured that it was about to sink its claws (they did look the part) into the back of my favorite pink gingham dress and lift me off to the skies (only to eventually drop me to a terrible death high above the town dump) Of course it didn't, and I suspect it was protecting a nearby nest...but I never used that path again. I could tell you about the time that I wore a metal bucket over my head, armed with a mop, ready to do battle with a fine feathered home invader...but I won't. (Actually, I cannot specifically recount all of the "edge of your seat" action as I chickened out and spent an hour hiding in the cupboard while I rang my uncle to save me) I was quite the hero once though. There was a time that I boldly thrashed my way through tall, blinding, wild grasses to save a crying toddler trapped in quicksand from a swooping pair of evil vultures. (Okay, so I stumbled through the backyard because my husband hadn't cut the grass in a month so I could grab my son out of his wet sandbox before two blackbirds decided he was a little to close to their favorite "pooping" tree.) Birds and I don't mix.