Birdwatching
'Faramir! What are you doing up there?' Boromir cries, seeing his little brother sitting on top of the garden wall.
An indignant hiss is all the answer he gets.
Boromir is no fool – after all, one is not supposed to be at the age of eleven. So he quietly enters and quickly climbs up to the spot where his brother is.
'What is it?' he whispers.
'Well, nothing now,' Faramir retorts, annoyed. 'You scared them!'
'Them?'
Faramir points downward, and finally, Boromir sees it.
A small brown-grey bunch of twigs, dry grass and moss in a tree fork below them contains five rather ugly baby birds.
'Oh!' he breathes out.
'Chaffinches,' Faramir whispers. 'Quiet…'
They sit in silence for what feels to them as a long, long time, and are soon rewarded when a bird with a blue-grey "cap" on its head almost whizzes to the nest like a cute plump missile. The young burst into demanding, indignant squeaks; the parent stuffs food into one of the eager beaks and flies off in search for more.
The brothers look at each other with excited grins.
For even at the advanced age of eleven, one is entitled to some simple delights.