Who was that masked bird?

“What’s that bird?” asked my daughter, pointing to a small dark speck winging its way upwards from the stubble field.

“That’s a woodpigeon.”

“How do you know it’s a woodpigeon?”

Good question. How did I know? Because of where it was, because of what it was doing, because it just looked and moved like a woodpigeon, even though it was a long way away. The jizz just said ‘woodpigeon’, and no argument about it.

It got me thinking about how we recognise things. A decade or so ago, when my son was rising two and just learning to talk, his favourite word was ‘dog’ (usually screamed in loud delight when any unfortunate canine hove into view). On holiday in Spain we saw lots of dogs of all sorts, big and small, from Chihuahuas to wolfhounds, and he never made a mistake. They were all dogs, and all recognised as such. He never called a cat ‘dog’.

But how did he know they were all dogs? They all looked so different. Was it their context? But they were by no means all on leads and accompanied by humans. They were by no means all doing the same thing when he recognised them. He just knew, from a selection of subconsciously-noticed signs that made up a pattern, that they were dogs. He’d got their jizz.

“So how do I learn to tell which is a woodpigeon, then?” my daughter asked again.

Just keep looking all the time. Keep your eyes open, notice things, and one day it’ll come to you.