Since October, my father has been unwell in a nursing home and my mother has been keeping him company there. We said that we would see how things are going by spring and my father has looked eagerly out of the window at the skeleton trees for some sign of buds or early birds. As we reached the limits of medicine, the care home staff have shown the extraordinary powers of kindness and cheerfulness.
My father is a little too weak for expeditions so I bring him news of the natural world. I had heard the sounds of the woodpecker, for instance. He nodded: “Which kind?” My father’s naturalism is of the Gilbert White kind, observing narrowly. When his two-year-old great grandson showed him a picture of a barn owl and proudly exclaimed: “Twitter-wooo,” dad replied that was not how a barn owl sounded at all.
