Here
is the seventh of our November Novenas for the Fallen Through, which
for this month are devoted to Saint Cuthbert and to a call for
protection for our wild kinfolk. If you would like to read more about
this month’s novena you can read our first prayer here.
We
have already lifted prayers for our badgers, our hedgehogs, and for
the street trees of Sheffield, for otter, cormorant, and seal, and
for sharks and orcas, and for stag beetles. Today, as yesterday, we
will weave prayer around another being who we can support with our
gardens, the starling.
Living
a life of quiet contemplation in the wild landscape of Inner Farne,
St Cuthbert shared many intimate moments with birds. I written before
about his great love for eider ducks, who inspired him to introduce
perhaps the world’s first bird conservation laws in 676, and who
are now known as ‘Cuddy ducks’ in the local area. In one story
about him told by Bede, he was said to have set out on one of his
long journeys and took a young boy with him for company. It was a
long day of walking in a difficult terrain and the boy became tired
and hungry, worrying that they had nothing to eat. Cuddy told him not
to be concerned and that God would provide. Soon afterwards they saw
an eagle flying overheard and Cuddy said that food would be brought
to them by the wild bird. After a while they saw the eagle settled by
a riverbank. Cuddy instructed the boy to run over to see what had
been brought for them and, when he did so, he found a large fish left
on a rock. When he saw what the boy had brought back, Cuthbert
admonished him for not leaving any food for the eagle and instructed
him to cut the fish in half and return part of it to their helper.
On
another occasion, a group of ravens flew down and began to gather
straw from the thatch of Cuddy’s roof. He chased them away but
three days later one returned as he dug his garden and bowed its head
to him with wings outspread. Cuthbert told the raven that they were
welcome to return and on their next visit they brought with them the
gift of a lump of lard, which Cuddy kept and encouraged visitors to
use for the purpose of waterproofing their shoes. There have been
many reports of corvids bringing gifts to people who have woven right
relationship with them and so this story feels to hold many layers of
beautiful truth. I also love the stories of our wild edge early
Christian saints, so many of which are grounded in respect and
sharing with non-human family. Truly a woven sacred.
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| Starling, Wiki Commons |
Starry-winged
starlings, so beautiful of feather and bright of spirit, are one of
our most familiar, and seemingly abundant, garden birds. It might
then shock many of us to know that their numbers dwindled by 80% in
the British Isles between 1966 and 2004 , with a 92% drop in woodland
populations, and that they are now on the Red List for Birds of
Conservation Concern. I was born in 1966 and so writing this I feel
that I have spent my whole life in the presence of a dying star.
Starlings
truly are the most beautiful of birds; the juveniles have grey~brown
plumage, with large white speckles on their chests and creamy
throats. In the autumn they moult completely and take in the adults’
stunning colours; black twinkling
with snowflake
white in the winter and, as the year turns to spring, becoming
iridescent
green and purple. Even their beaks change colour, from dark brown in
winter to yellow in the spring and summer, with
a blue base for males and pink for females. They will feed on almost
anything; insects, worms, fruits, berries, scraps, and suet, although
they will feed only invertebrates to their young. Bringing them up
proper!
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| Starling and fledgling, Ian Dunster, Wiki Commons |
They
also have a beautiful sense of the division of labour, with the
unpaired males building a nest base from grass in cavities in walls,
trees, or buildings, which they may then decorate with leaves and
petals in order to deter parasites and improve their chances of
attracting a mate. Once prepared, they will sing from a perch close
to the nest entrance hoping to open the heart of a female. Once
entranced and enamoured, the female will complete their home by
creating a nest cup, which she then lines with feathers, wool, and
moss. In April they will lay 4 to 6 eggs, which will be almost
exclusively incubated and brooded by the female, with the fledglings
being fed by both parents. Which is just as well as I have seen how
demanding the babies can be!
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| Jason Spinks, Wiki Commons |
Despite
their intricate nest-building they are born wanderers and, once the
juveniles have become independent, they will disperse in large
flocks, probably to farmland or woodland. We have seen this in our
own garden, where summer days are filled with a noisy cacophony of
starlings, only to suddenly fall silent at the turning to autumn.
That is always a sad day, although they aren’t gone for long. As
autumn goes on they, together with overwintering migrants from
Scandinavia, Finland, and Poland, return to begin their wild song
once more, a song whose gift for mimicry has been noted by Pliny the
Elder, William Shakespeare, and in the earliest recorded prose
stories in the literature of Britain, The Mabinogian.
During
the winter, these birds gather in buildings, trees, or reed beds to
create roosts, often several thousand birds strong. The reed bed
roosts though can comprise several million birds, which provide
individuals with protection from predators, and it’s these which
create the wonderful spectacle of murmurations as they return to
settle for the night. I remember seeing a tiny murmuration of
starlings flying above a shopping centre in Thamesmead, South London,
which I rejoiced in until I realised that they were there because the
land had once been a wetland of reeds and that they continued to
return to that place turned to concrete and desolate-dry. I couldn’t
quite bare to look at them after that. I did though love to spend
time with the cheeky little starlings of Woolwich, who would splash
about in the water feature there and fearlessly run between people’s
legs on the busy pavement seeking out crumbs. I’m not sure that
many people bothered even to glance at them, so familiar are they.
Often I felt that, even in that most manic of places, the starlings
and I had shared a moment that was ours alone. They helped me keep
going on many dark days. I was a little afraid of them when I was
young, I think that it was the sharp rapier of their beaks that
disturbed me. Now I feel nothing but gratitude and love.
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| A Wedge of Starlings, Walter Baxter, Wiki Commons |
As
for their survival in our land, it is sad to note that, whilst one
third of starlings used to survive their first year, this number has
now been reduced to only 15%. Birds surviving to breeding age may
live for a further two to three years, although the oldest known
individual was 21 years old! Starlings are tenacious and adaptable
birds and their fortunes are closely linked to human activity,
particularly as farming has provided them with suitable conditions
for nesting. It is people who have made it possible for starlings to
hugely increase their numbers across Europe and Asia, so deeply woven
in are we. In many countries, they are considered beneficial as, by
eating large numbers of invertebrates which are considered crop
pests, they do us a service. However, in areas where autumn and
winter crops are grown, they may come into conflict with people.
These conflicts mainly centre on cherry orchards (I know that they
strip our cherry trees every year, but I celebrate that, along with
any cherries that I manage to salvage for myself!), autumn-sown
cereal crops, and cattle feeding troughs. Because of this there have
been many failed efforts to reduce their numbers.
In
Britain though that decline seems to be happening whether we have a
direct hand in it or not, and it’s not entirely clear why. It’s
likely that rural populations are being adversely affected by loss of
permanent pasture, which is their preferred feeding habitat, together
with an intensification of livestock rearing. It may also be that
their dependence on invertebrates when feeding their chicks has made
them vulnerable as that food source becomes more scarce due to
climate change and the use of pesticides. They may also be finding
fewer suitable sites for nesting owing to household improvements, so
hermetically sealed are we. Often too they are disliked even by
people who enjoy feeding birds in their gardens, due to their
clearing a bird feeder in a matter of minutes. I can certainly attest
to that, as we seemed to spend more money replenishing the birds’
food over the summer than we did our own! Starlings are gregarious
birds and have evolved to feed in flocks for protection, but they are
nonetheless labelled ‘greedy’ by some. This is easily remedied if
one must by providing some feeders that are only accessible to
smaller birds.
It
is clear that the fortunes of human and starling are deeply entwined.
I hope for more sustainable farming practices that might help them,
and us, to thrive and I hope that, as with stag beetles, we can use
our small plots of earth, our gardens, to help the starling people
survive. It seems that they are most affected by the reduction in
numbers of worms and other invertebrates when they are feeding their
babies. At all other times they are so deeply adaptable and
resilient, very much like humankind, and so perhaps we could again be
more mindful of allowing our gardens to become a prayer to dirt,
encouraging a diversity of beings to make their homes there. I know
that that would be a world that wasn’t just more healthy for
starlings and their young, it would be more beautiful for us.
Certainly this year the starling people in our garden seem to have
successfully raised two clouds of young and it has been a joy to see.
I am just a little bit proud if anything that we have done has helped
them. Bring on the cacophany of feathers and stars!
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| The Starling That Dared to be Different, http://www.radiolab.org/story/starling-dared-be-different_kw/ |
Novena for the Fallen
Through
Protection, justice, and shining health for our wild kin.
This is a prayer is for the starling people, our starry-sky kin.
Blessed Cuthbert,
Beloved Cuddy,
Saint of Salt and Fire,
Antlered ancestor,
Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,
Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,
Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,
Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.
We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.
We
lift a prayer of solidarity and hope for our the starling people,
beautiful
of feather, bright of spirit, wild of voice,
from
winter speckled snowflakes to summer Northern Lights,
trailing
spring in their Aurora Borealis flight.
Blessings
on the starling people,
so
deeply entwined with the tides of humankind,
adapatble,
resilient, communal, vociferous,
so
much like us, so beautifully different.
Blessings
on the rakish ones,
the
rowdy ones,
the
raucous ones,
breakers
of monotony,
who
split the day with song.
Blessed Cuthbert,
Beloved Cuddy,Saint of Salt and Fire,
Antlered ancestor,
Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,
Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,
Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,
Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.
We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.
Help
us to learn from the star-feather people
the
meaning of home,
the
strength of base and cup, of nest and love,
the
tenderness of shared work,
the
vulnerability of trust.
Help
us to honour that
the
foundations of our homes may be built
in
a different prayer;
the
ghosts of reed beds, marshes, rivers, streams,
woodland,
the dream of trees,
to
remember that there are other needs than ours,
built
in deeper tides and times.
Help
us to allow and provide what we can
to
make a home for all beings displaced
by
our own ancient quest for home.
Help
us to remember that
cracks
don’t mean crumbling,
but
can be the space where Life gets in.
Blessed Cuthbert,
Beloved Cuddy,Saint of Salt and Fire,
Antlered ancestor,
Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,
Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,
Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,
Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.
We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.
Teach
us how to share, to joyfully give,
to
learn that self-protection can appear as brashness,
that
seeming greed is often need.
Help
us learn to live communally,
cooperatively,
collectively
as
you did with your own wild kin,
became
a joyous choir of diversity,
singing
the mending of relationship in.
To
mimic your older tongue,
a
way of living that we have forgotten for so long.
And
let our little starlings,
our
pearly kings and queens,
lead
the choir with boisterous symphony.
Help
us to notice what the earth gives freely,
where
we stop the flow of mother’s milk
by
being too tidy, too attached to our plans
for
land that is only borrowed and gifted to our care.
Help
us to learn from the starling people
the
ability to change our colours and our seasons,
not
being fixed, adapting to what comes,
allowing
our gardens to take their own shape,
embracing
spider and cranefly, moth and mayfly,
snail
and earthworm, sawfly and bee,
a
feast for starling chicks,
bringing
the wild to door and heart,
and
finding both flung open.
Blessed Cuthbert,
Beloved Cuddy,Saint of Salt and Fire,
Antlered ancestor,
Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,
Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,
Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,
Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.
We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.
We
lift a prayer of sorrow
for
the dwindling of the starling people,
the
silencing of their song,
we
do not wish to live in a world of dying stars,
but
in a nursery of light.
We
pray for their return,
for
soft nests and warm spring rains,
for
untainted earth rich with life,
for
long summers and wide blue skies,
for
golden autumn, the intimacy of winter
for
discordant song to fill the air with joy,
as
speckled snow and northern light,
teach
us how to live more deeply entwined.
We ask this in the name
of badger and water vole,
hen harrier and
natterjack toad,red fox and red deer,
dotterel and dormouse,
red squirrel and seal.
Of starling and sparrow,
sand lizard and slow worm,
hedgehog and hare,
corn marigold and marsh cleaver.
Of great crested newt and small fleabane,
ringed plover and oystercatcher,
pasque flower and mountain ringlet butterfly,
wildcat and skylark.
Of marsh fritillary butterfly and shrill carder bee,
blue ground beetle and white-clawed crayfish,
freshwater
pearl mussel, cormorant, and crow.
Blessed Cuthbert,
Beloved Cuddy,Saint of Salt and Fire,
Antlered ancestor,
Friend of otter, eider, cormorant, and crow,
Walker of the untamed edge of Land and Spirit,
Lover of wild places, wild creatures, and wild grace,
Threader of sea-stars into wild prayer.
We stand in solidarity with you at the roots of the Tree of Life.
May
the starling kin thrive.
In
a human world where so many walk with loneliness,
let
them teach us the value of good company
the
protection of community,
the
joy of dancing in constellation,
and
may humankind and starlingkind
become
celestial family,
a
twinkling stellar society,
find
that our futures are entangled,
that
it’s written in our stars.
The first is for badger.
The second is for hedgehog.
The third is for Sheffield’s street trees.
The fourth is for otter, cormorant, and seal,
for salmon, and elver, and eel.
The fifth is for shark and orca,
the sixth for stag beetle,
the seventh for starling.
May our string of prayer beads,
formed in the starry sea where all things are one,
gathered on the shore of meeting,
be filled with life, love, and wild justice
for all beings on this earth we share.
For this we pray.
Aho mitake oyasin, amen, blessed be. Inshallah.
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| Starling at Stonehenge, R Wampers, Wiki Commons |
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