Feathery Friends

Here's one of Polar's stories about me.  It shows you how much you can learn by reading and looking at pictures.  

Sitting on the cushion in the cabin, Sonning could see that the papers on the settee which Polar had tidied into a heap had pictures of birds on them.  He leaned forward, hoping for a better view of them.  Although he could see the pictures quite well, the writing on them was too small for him to read.

Just then, Grizzly came back into the cabin.  ‘You look like you’re about to fall off of that cushion, little chap!’ he said.  ‘Let’s sit you down on the settee!’

Grizzly carefully lifted Sonning down from his cushion and sat him next to the bird charts.

‘Thank you!’ said Sonning.

Grizzly didn’t seem to hear him, as he opened the small doors in the side of the boat, left the cabin and went through to the back without saying anything more.

Sonning turned to look at the charts.  The top page was titled Ducks and Geese.  Sonning saw pictures of some of the birds that he had seen from his tree and from the boat.  Now he was close to the charts, he could read their names.  The brown ducks with green heads were called mallards.  The green-headed ones were the boy ducks and the brown ones with a little blue stripe across each wing were the girls.  

The big white bird with the whistling wings that had flown near his tree was a mute swan. 

‘What an odd name for a bird that makes so much noise when it flies!’ said Sonning.

Sonning saw that the proper name for the boat people’s favourite birds with fancy plumage was great-crested grebe and the noisy geese with chocolate brown heads were Canada geese.

He couldn’t see some of the other birds that he had seen out on the river on the Ducks and Geese chart, so he turned to another sheet.  On this were pictures of small birds, including some that had perched in his tree.  He recognised the robin with its red breast, a neat little brown bird called a dunnock, the tiny wren and the reed bunting.  One of those had sat right on the top branch singing in the evening.  

‘I wonder what the big grey fishing bird with the long beak is?’ said Sonning, turning to another page.  He had seen this bird slowly flapping its huge wings as it looked for a good spot to catch fish.  Sonning thought it was rather scary, especially the way it stabbed at them with its big beak.  He didn’t find the big grey bird on the next chart, which was titled Birds of Prey, but he did see a picture of the fierce, fork-tailed bird he once thought might eat him for dinner. 

‘So, it’s a red kite!’ he said.  ‘I hope I don’t see any more of those!’

Sonning found the grey bird on a sheet covered in pictures of long-legged wading birds and others that liked to live near fresh water.  It was a heron.  The jewel-bright kingfisher was there too.  Sonning had heard Grizzly saying that he hoped to see one of those.  Sonning though he should like to see one too.  He looked out on the river through the pair of little doors on the side of the boat which Grizzly had opened.  He saw more mallards and another grebe.

‘Hello grebe!’ he shouted.  The grebe turned towards the boat for a moment, looking rather startled.  Suddenly, it dived under the surface and was gone from view.

‘I wonder why the big black fishing bird isn’t here?’ Sonning said.  He had seen one of these sleek creatures swimming right in the middle of the river and diving to catch fish.  He was very surprised to see it was on the sea birds sheet.  So was a dainty white bird that he had watched dancing on the wind over the river before diving in to snatch slippery silver fish.  The big black bird was a cormorant and the pretty white bird with the black stripe through its eye and red flash on its head was an arctic tern.

Sonning was busy learning the names of all these birds when the Polar came into the cabin.  He didn’t know if he might have done wrong, disturbing the pile of bird charts, so he sat very still with his paws by his side.

‘The wind has blown those charts about again,’ she said, closing the doors in the side of the boat again.  ‘And Sonning looks a bit bored sitting there.  I’m not sure if he’s finished drying out, either.’

She squeezed his tummy.

‘Ouch!’ said Sonning, but she didn’t seem to hear him.  Sonning concluded that humans didn’t have very good ears, or at least that they weren’t as good as animal ears.

‘He is still slightly damp,’ Polar said.  ‘He can come out into the cratch with me.  He’ll be safe there while I do the ropes as the next lock is only a small one.’

‘I’d rather stay here, thank you!’ said Sonning, a little more loudly than before, but Polar’s silly human ears still didn’t hear him and he was carried out into a little triangular room right by Uplander’s nose, where Polar sat him down on a soft seat.  Sonning saw that the little room had sides which looked like they were made from cloth of some sort.  Polar did something to the cloth on the right-and side which allowed her to roll it up, opening that side of the room to the fresh air and enabling Sonning to see over the side of the boat as well as forwards.  Polar sat down beside him.  It was lovely and warm there, in the summer sunshine and gentle breeze, but the little bear was nervous.  Although Sonning thought he should be safe next to Polar, he would have preferred to stay on the settee with the picture charts and learn the names of the birds, especially if there was another lock monster nearby.

PS.  I will explain what lock monsters are very soon!