A Good Ticking Off

A shirtsleeves water meadows walk on another beautiful day. I sat on a little bridge over a tiny stream that has dried up. The wren above wasn't happy that we were near its territory in the hedge and kept its tick, tick, tick alarm call up for ages.

I was hoping to shoot a wren the other day when Robert Macfarlane's Word Of The Day was Zaunkönig, which means hedge or fence king: the German name for the wren. They are our commonest British bird but not the easiest to capture as they skulk out of sight. This is probably why they were given the scientific name Troglodytes troglodytes, which means cave-dweller. This always makes me think of the sixties group The Troggs, who started out as The Troglodytes. That got me listening to Wild Thing and Love Is All Around which featured in Four Weddings And A Funeral. Love Is All Around has a ticking percussion sound.