Life

Sleb Safari: There's chirping coming from the birdbox

Maeve Connoly

Maeve Connolly

Maeve is the deputy digital editor at The Irish News. She has worked for the company since 2000.

A coal tit and a blue tit feeding on peanuts from a bird feeder but not the bird feeder at Sleb Safari's house
A coal tit and a blue tit feeding on peanuts from a bird feeder but not the bird feeder at Sleb Safari's house A coal tit and a blue tit feeding on peanuts from a bird feeder but not the bird feeder at Sleb Safari's house

THE best thing Sleb Safari has done during lockdown, other than to stay at home and abide by the restrictions, was to set up a bird feeder that’s visible from its desk.

Sleb Safari’s desk is the kitchen table and it breakfasts, lunches and dines at the same seat as it works. Using the time-honoured tradition of doing sums on the back of a cigarette packet, Sleb Safari estimates that it spends nearly half its day sitting in the exact same spot. That can’t be good for either the seat or Sleb Safari.

Anyhoodle, the bird feeder is a very welcome distraction and the birds are excellent colleagues. Never once have any of them said “Ahm, I need to get back to work now but I totalllllllllllly want to hear the rest of that story later” and then under their breaths “much later. Maybe never?”

This is a coal tit
This is a coal tit This is a coal tit

Coal tits have nested in a bird box that Sleb Safari had presumed was only ever going to be decorative as it’s been in situ for at least four years. The chicks hatched just over a week ago and are being fed around the clock by both parents and Sleb Safari is impatiently waiting for them to take their maiden flight. Coal tits are teeny tiny and the chicks must be even smaller but they are noisy little blighters and it’s a joy to hear them chirping merrily. What must it be like for a brood of chicks to fight their way out of eggshells together, then clamber for room as they grow in a confined space?

There are only two other types of birds which visit the feeder – great tits and chaffinches – and they seem to be nesting in the trees so a formal introduction to their young seems unlikely.

Sleb Safari would never have got to enjoy watching the little songbirds flit between nest and feeder if not for lockdown and while watching them it’s impossible to even contemplate there being anything wrong in the world.

It’s OK to want to block out the bad news and the sad news. It’s important to stay informed – ignorance is not bliss – but being informed doesn’t need to come at the expense of your own personal joy.

Sleb Safari is an advocate of naming one thing every day that you’re grateful for during times you’re feeling challenged. If it’s only (only?) the fact that the sun shone then so be it.

Sleb Safari meant to write about celebrities and their lockdown shenanigans when it started this column but it looked out the window and saw the birds and got distracted. Today Sleb Safari is grateful that the sun shone and the birds visited.

High Five Jamie Lynn Spears

Britney Spears arrives at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards
Britney Spears arrives at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards Britney Spears arrives at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards

THIS week Sleb Safari tips its hat to Jamie Lynn Spears, little sister of Britney.

It’s 20 years since Britney released Oops, I Did It Again which was, fact fans, her second album and Jamie Lynn says that’s when things really changed for the family.

“Oops! is when Britney’s fame went from household name to absolute superstardom, in my opinion as a young girl observing it all. That’s when things around me started to change. She had to have security everywhere, hotels were a little nicer, and we got to fly in the nice part of the plane. I remember thinking, even at nine years old, ‘This can’t be our reality’.”

Jamie Lynn referred to her sister as a “living legend” to The Hollywood Report and they asked if that’s how Britney sees herself. Jamie Lynn’s reply is what makes Sleb Safri doff its cap.

“No, not at all. She just doesn’t. She waves me off and is just like, ‘Whatever, whatever, whatever’. But I still try to explain that to her. People always ask me, ‘Is there a lot of pressure being related to Britney, someone who is an icon?’ And the answer is no, not really. If anything, it’s an honor to be the sibling of someone who worked very hard and created a dream and a legacy that will last forever.”

High five Jamie Lynn Spears.

Post Malone is making rosé wine

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

@maison9wine

A post shared by @ postmalone on

Post Malone has started to produce his own rosé wine. Well, he’s not picking grapes and crushing them underfoot himself but his name is on the label.

It’s a Provence rosé which offers notes of “ripe pineapple, pear and strawberry” and is called Maison No 9. It transpires that the nine of swords is his favourite tarot card. Snap and indeed cheers to that.

Social Media Smut

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I got new running shoes and Andy says they are grounds for divorce.

A post shared by Brooklyn Decker (@brooklyndecker) on