Look at this nest hanging from a tree in a garden at the foot of the mountain. Some nests are pretty amazing. This one is a sphere with a small entrance on one side. Why has the bird has chosen this exact spot to create it? We don’t know, but I’d imagine it’s got something to do with safety. After all, isn’t that one of the most basic needs of all forms of life? Shelter. But why hang it way out on the branch like this, where, surely, it’ll be buffeted by wind and rain more than it would be if it were closer to the tree trunk, or in a more dense area of branches and twigs. Again, I expect it’s about security. I expect it’s harder for predators of all kinds to reach it way out there.
But the other thing I thought about when looking at this photo, is the location of the nest in the surrounding landscape. A phrase from one of TS Eliot’s plays came to mind, where a character asks if people huddle together in cities in such large numbers because they like to be close to each other. I saw a graphic the other day showing the growth of cities over the last fifty years. Tokyo is the most densely populated city in the world by far, with something like a quarter of the whole population of Japan living there. I live in a hamlet of about 20 houses, just at the edge of a small village, surrounded by fields and trees. There are so many little villages and towns in rural France where you can pass through without seeing a single soul. All you see is shops and businesses which have long gone, and many abandoned old houses in various stages of disrepair. There’s a common issue in small to medium towns in France where they have developed shopping malls and zones around the edges of the town, and now, the middle of the town is almost dead. When we used to live near Cognac, we could walk down the main streets hardly seeing another soul, but as we passed the shopping outlets on the edge of the town we could see the parking lots were full to overflowing.
Why do we choose to live where we live? Of course, that’s a very complex question, related to where you were born, where your relatives live, where you can find gainful employment, where there are the necessary services providing education, health and social care. And a host of other factors too. But there’s also the issue of personal preference between city dwelling and country dwelling. There’s no doubt some people really prefer city life to that of a small town, or a village, and there are others who have the exact opposite preferences.
What would be your ideal place to live? If you could choose freely, what size and type of community and environment would you like to live in? And, do you know why?
Heroes Not Zombies 