Starlings and Mistletoe....oh and Mozart.

Haven't blogged for a while, I'm afraid. Time and all that.  Spent day in studio, drawing some starlings from photos I have taken or found.  Also found out that Mozart had a starling in a cage.  Apparently this is a well known fact.  I found a poem that suggested that Mozart found a starling in a shop, heard it singing the allegretto theme from his own piano concerto in G-major and had to buy it. Although it is suggested that Mozart taught the bird the theme and then bought it.  Mad story, but as I said, a well known fact....apparently!  Although I have never really engaged with classical music, I listened to this and found I quite liked it. Have downloaded from itunes and I think I am listening to it at the moment!  Very difficult with classical music, it's all movements and number and things. Whatever I am listening to, it is lovely piano.
I also found out that Coleridge had written about "Starlings in vast flight drove along like smoke.....some moments glimmering, shivering, dim and shadowy, thickening, deepening, shadowy".

I have also spent time drawing mistletoe, growing from the branch.  It is a piece I picked up in Bedfordshire, that had been chopped from the tree.  I love mistletoe, as I have mentioned before in this blog.  It'll be coming into its own now, in Somerset,  and so will the starlings. Something else I found out today, mistletoe extract has been used in trials to help with cancer and HIV cures.