The lighter side: Lesson in the birds and the bees

I must say I didn't think I was too up on the ins and outs of avian rumpy-pumpy but I felt I knew what the two blackbirds on the tree outside my window were up to.
She sat pretty still, trying to look unimpressed. He, on the other hand, was quite clearly showing off.
"Do you like the way I can fan my tail a bit?" he seemed to ask, cocking his head a little to one side to add to the flirtatious, coquettish effect.
She simply turned her beak the other way. After all, hers hadn't been a sheltered existence - she had seen fantails.
"Or what about some of these tricky manoeuvres?" And he hopped from branch to branch, twig to twig, everywhere around her, all the time looking across to her face for some sign of approval, some sign that his male magic was doing its trick. Not a flicker. She was not at all impressed even though some of the twigs he was using as landing places were quite frail and bendy and could have given way at any moment.
"Okay. What about if I incorporate a bit of wing movement?" he asked and he flitted and fluttered in the most extraordinarily acrobatic manner.
Nothing.
"You'll have to do more than just bring some wing into it," she conveyed through her body language.
"It's not easy to pull birds," he must have been thinking so he threw caution to the wind and went straight at her with what looked like a bit of a peck. She retaliated in a like manner and then flew a few branches away.
But then something remarkable happened. She started moving back closer to him. Had the spell been cast? Did she just have to pretend to be a decent upright girl first? Did girl birds have to protect their reputation by not appearing too eager for it?
Then the two came together again for a second or two of feathered flurry before he flew away. Was that it? Or was that just a preamble? Would they meet again elsewhere? Had she carefully followed his flight path? Would there be boiled lollies during the final descent before landing?
But, wait a minute! It must have been just a preamble because, somewhere in the procedure, weren't bees also meant to be involved? Or had I been misinformed? Or had I missed apian involvement? After all, bees are much harder to see with the naked (don't you love it when I talk dirty?) eye. Which set me to wondering what part the bee would have played anyway.
Given the fact that it was too small for me to see, it could have engaged in all sorts of immodest behaviour, freed as it were from the shackles of prying eyes. Given the fairly fluttery nature of the flurry, it would have had to be careful not to get in the way, certainly careful enough not to probe the birds with its own little secret weapon (sorry, bee - I mean little by comparison) which would have meant curtains for the bee and at least a nasty rash for the feathered ones.
So I can now say I've seen it all, understand it fully - well, apart from the bee bit - and I expect you may be wondering why I am telling you all this.
Indeed, you may have been wondering since about line 3 of this piece.
Well, I do it really to illustrate to Mrs Tolley that I have "reached the standard" in "the birds and the bees" and would now like my box ticked so I can go ahead and start teaching it all to the young so that they too might have a chance of "reaching the standard" and understanding the rich complexities that exist in the great tapestry of this life. I'm sure you will all agree that, thanks to my observations, I have acquired a pretty thorough understanding of this particular subject area.
And thank goodness understandings like this can simply be ticked off as having been ... well ... grasped.
*Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, public speaker and musician.