why is a raven like a writing desk

 Guess what? On the 29th day look what hatched.

And a little later there were two.

A second generation of the dear ducks killed by a fox in the last episode.

I think they may both be boys - female ducklings quack and male ducklings squeak. There's a lot of squeaking going on.

At the same time they hatched I was given these two baby jackdaws. They, unlike the ducks need to be hand fed every few hours. I remember with the famous Mrs Magpie I took her to Cambridge for a Patti Smith concert and had to leave in the interval to feed her in the car.

Pocket is annoyed he has no access to these little forces of nature and that I even take them in in the first place. You're a mumpsimus he tells me. A stubborn person who keeps making a known mistake. I have to agree with him. Also you only give me a tittynope of food in the mornings. It's amazing what I have to put up with. My stomach wambles at the very thought of it.

Where are you getting these fancy words from I ask - The Oxford Dictionary? As a man sees so a man is he mutters as he pandiculates across the carpet. William Blake said that I told him but he ignores me and turns into  cockney cat. Strike a light guv  he says.

Along with the magpies came a box of jackdaws whose nest had been blown down from the tree. There was talk of a raven who couldn't walk properly but then apparently it walked properly before whoever had found it could pick it up. The raven is the Irish Wolfhound of birds. And I suspect might have devoured one of the fledgling jackdaws if put in the same pace. I have looked after one before and they are bigger than Nancy our black cat.

I've no idea how birds have played such a large part of my life. I wrote a one woman play once before I started looking after corvids about a woman who turned into a bird. A sort of Lilith character. Lilith was Adam's first wife who grew wings and flew away when Adam wanted her to be subservient. Of course she was turned into a she-devil as a result.

the garden is a mass of different varieties of roses this year.

Lilith

The new feathers fitted

uncomfortably around her body

suppressing the natural curves

of her breasts, thighs and buttocks.

Instead of her juicy lips which before

had planted sighs and kisses

on delighted cheeks

she had - a beak.

Her feet, which had danced 

to the beat of time

were constricted into

sharp, tight claws

but her eyes - 

dark, bright, shining

and reliant

still saw - 

everything.

She watched soft,compliant Eve

smoothing Adam's bed

she eyed the apple

tempting for that pie

that Eve was so good at making.

She decided not to stick around

to see what happened to those boys

she had men to visit

in their dreams.

Linda Coggin