The Blackbird

I think if someone told me this, I might not believe them, but it's completely true and I've just come in from the back yard to write it down.
I was feeling a bit down and hemmed in by the barbecues, the barking dogs, the lawn mowers: so I decided to take my acoustic guitar outside and make some of my own noise to mark out my own territory.
As I was pickin' away I heard a thump on the wooden fence just beside me and it was a blackbird landing; it peered at me from side to side with its little beady eyes as I was playing.
I carried on because I thought that it might fly off if I stopped and I segued a few tunes into each other so it could see that I wasn't a threat- and then it started singing along! Not normal blackbird territory song, but funny little chirrups, looking at me all the time as though it was trying to size me up, and listening to the guitar.
We sat there side by side making music for about fifteen minutes, until it hopped down in front of me and went to look for worms in one of the plant pots.
What a lovely way to spend Friday evening. It kind of reminded me of years ago when I had a neat little orange canary that used to sing beautifully when I did the vacuuming- except that wasn't quite so flattering!
I'm going out there tomorrow evening: same time, same place, to sit on the bench and see if it comes back to join me again. Me on guitar, blackbird on vocals.