Strawberry Thief was the name given by William Morris, the eminent Victorian designer, to a pattern for fabrics and wallpaper. It is still popular and I have just checked an image on the internet to see if my memory was correct. I recommend a visit to Morris's historic home in Walthamstow, East London.
This time I was immediately struck by the stylized way in which Morris depicts his pairs of thrushes. Delicately poised and mirrored amid the fruit, the pairs pluck a strawberry by the stem or pause to sing. it is a lovely design, but at some remove from reality.
A blackbird does not pluck raspberries by the stem. He lands on a branch and begins to peck at the droplets (a gardeners' rather than technical term) working his way through a ripe fruit. At this point, my husband usually catches sight of him and bangs on the kitchen window. He flies away. At a later stage he may decide to sing. He does not sing from amidst the fruit he is consuming, but selects a wall, a fence, a shed roof, a tree or a television aerial: whatever gives him a good vantage point, alerts others to his territory and on summer days enables him to catch the rays of the sun.
But then, who would buy a wallpaper depicting a blackbird on a television aerial?
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