Easter 2007 — Eggs & Birds

This is an oystercatcher’s egg. The oystercatcher is a bird of the seashore - a large, stocky, black and white wading bird. It has a long, orange-red bill and reddish-pink legs. It uses its long beak to pick out and eat cockles (rather than oysters!). This means that the population is vulnerable if cockle beds are overexploited.

Just a few months ago – on the day after Christmas day, in fact – the poet John Heath-Stubbs died. He was blind for most of his life, although he believed his progressive blindness stimulated his imagination. And despite his blindness he loved birds and wrote many poems about them. One of these is about the oystercatcher and celebrates a Scotch folktale, which tells how an oystercatcher helped Jesus:

They say in the Highlands and the Western Isles –
This tale was made by men who knew
What being harried and pursued could mean – that Jesus,
Fleeing the malice of his enemies,
Went down to the wild shore, to find a cave to hide in.
But the sea-pies, flying
About the limpet-covered reef, with clear bright calls,
Took pity on him there, and in their scarlet beaks
Brought kelp and tangle to cover him completely.
The ruthless foe went by. And for that season
His cup of suffering passed.
Therefore the oystercatcher
Is of good fortune and well seen of men,
Running at the tide’s edge
Upon the cockle and the mussel banks.

There’s nothing in the Bible, of course, about Jesus making a trip to Scotland, let alone being hid under a pile of seaweed by oystercatchers! It is also said that after the pursuers had gone Christ emerged from the seaweed and gave the birds a white cross to wear for their services. In the Gaelic language the oystercatcher is known as gille-bride, the page or servant of St Bride, a patron saint of birds.

A somewhat similar tale is told about the mallard, which can also be found in this Easter calendar.