 THE ornithologist of the popular imagination tucks his baggy brown corduroy trousers into the top of his wellies and gloops across the mud, binoculars swinging from his neck, until he reaches the brink of the quagmire. There, he lies on his belly, beneath a miasma of flies, his bespectacled face peeping through the reeds like a mottled moon. Beside one elbow of his waxed jacket, a cheese sandwich curls in its box. Beside the other is a pad and pen, so that he can note down details of any unusual visitor from the skies. By comparison, the ornithologist who has been striding the streets of Liverpool for the past few years with his eyes peeled, is a suave fellow of straight bearing, who could have emerged from the glossy pages of a fashion magazine. Hear the squeak of brown shoes polished to a sheen that could reflect the hairs in the nostrils of a drill-ground sergeant-major. Admire the cut of the hand-stitched suit of slate grey. This is a man about town. But then David Cottrell is an urban twitcher, documenting the roosts of only one bird, the most majestic species ever to flap wings over our beloved city. But it comes in many forms, styles and ages. We are talking here of Liver Birds, and David has just written a book about them. You can tell that it was a love affair from the way he writes. "Their bodies are not flesh and blood but stone, brick, iron, bronze, brass, glass, enamel, clay and wood, rendered as sculpture, statuary, paintings and mosaics in every shade of colour. They stand proud or timid, serene of excitable, elegant or scruffy, fat or thin, plausible or preposterous." Resting his quill in the ink-pot for a moment to regain his breath, David, all 6ft 2ins of him, stretches his long legs to further contemplate the bird, which is one of the most potent symbols in the world. New York has the Statue of Liberty, Paris the Eiffel Tower, but in Liverpool was hatched a creature of wonder, which has never made love, but has spawned hundreds of children. |
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