In blissful ignorance
THROWING open my bedroom curtains as dawn gently lifted revealed the glory of a sunny Saturday morning in a sublime Tasmanian spring.
I love the view from this window and have a morning ritual of a cup of tea in bed while looking out at the splendour before facing the daily news.
This particular morning, a few weeks back, was special. The rising sun had awakened the birds in high spirits. A little drizzle overnight had moistened the morning, and the sun’s rays reflected from droplets that twinkled like tiny stars.
Suddenly, a little bird darted from the leaves, then another immediately on its tail.
The birds had shot out of an enormous prickly paperbark that is the central figure out my window. It’s a majestic tall tree that these past few weeks has been framed by hundreds of little lilac tufts from a flowering cross-leaf honey myrtle.
The pair of interstate natives are thriving, with healthy hues of green foliage. As I admired the leafy vigour, I noticed the very tip of a branch on the paperbark gently shake, its prickly little leaves nervously twitching. I peered harder into the lush green and twiggy brown. There was something in there.
Suddenly, again, a tiny bird, a silvereye, darted from the vibrating branches and then, again, another on its tail.
The paperback’s prickly leaves continued to tremble ever so slightly. What was in there?
Then I saw the nest, a clump of twigs about the size of my fist perched precariously at the end of a limb. At the top of the nest there was movement, the tiny beak of a chick.
Over the next few days I watched each morning as two adult silvereyes flew back and forth to the nest, presumably with food.
I went outside and peered into the nest one morning and saw an adult with its beautiful little wings fanned out to create a feathery doona that splayed across the top of the nest. It looked at me without moving.
Next day, I looked into the nest again and staring back at me was a wee chick. Just one, alone, sitting upright and alert.
I’m not one to instantly ooh and aah at the sight of baby animals.
In fact, I always felt awkward as a child in class when a picture-book image of a cuddly baby seal or dewy-eyed puppy would draw immediate cooing from the children sitting cross-legged on mats on the floor around me.
I could see and understand that the puppy was cute, but just didn’t feel the physical reaction of those around me to immediately vocalise their feelings.
Seeing this silvereye chick was different. I was instantly smitten by its cartoonish cuteness. Less than half the size of its parents, minuscule birds themselves, the chick’s eyes were just as big as his mum’s and dad’s seemingly perpetually wide-open peepers. It looked at me without fear, just pure curiosity and wonder.
The overwhelming sense of innocence in the chick’s gaze caused a reflex tremor to rise from the bottom of my chest and emerge from my throat as a chuckle that can only be described as goofy.
BACK in bed, sipping the last of my tea and still marvelling at the little silvereye, I turned to the latest news.
I read of the US-China trade war and how warships from each country had narrowly avoided colliding in a deadly game of chicken in the South China Sea.
I read how live coverage of the awards ceremony at the Chinese Oscars, the Golden Horse Awards, was cut by the Chinese Communist Party because documentary director Fu Yue said she hoped Taiwan would one day be truly independent.
“This is my biggest wish as a Taiwanese,” she said, before Big Brother pulled the plug and irate Chinese citizens attacked her mercilessly on social media.
I read how The Washington Post fact-checking unit had uncovered more than 3000 occasions when American President Donald Trump had lied or misled the public while in office.
I read how a columnist for that same newspaper was murdered in Saudi Arabia, his body hacksawed into pieces small enough to be dissolved in acid.
I read how the US withdrew from a deal with Russia over development of certain nuclear missiles.
I read of mayhem, crises, wars and angst. I read and read. The silvereyes did not. The chick’s parents continued their back and forth to the nest.
Then, after three days, the nest was abandoned and the paperbark’s trembling stopped as abruptly as it had started. The empty nest tugs at my heart.
I presume the chick is flying with his parents among the silvereyes I see regularly bouncing through the wattles on the other side of the house.
I’ve seen them flit from branch to branch in the papery limbs of a gigantic bracelet honey myrtle in my back yard too.
The massive tree has exploded in sweetly scented flowers that are as delicate as lace.
Bee swarms gravitate around the pollen-laden flowers to produce a buzzing electric hum, an ancient fanfare to the return of the summer sun.