ghost pocket

 As Autumn approaches I have the raven, a crow and two jackdaws in my shade tunnel waiting to be released. Below is a pic of raven watching crow fly. Now I can hardly tell them apart.

Ravens are very slow at growing and I've been told by several raven experts I will have to care for it till it's at least a year and a half. Raven releases are rarely successful apparently as other ravens are predatory.

The good news is that since it's palled up with the crow it no longer comes near me. Whereas before it would willingly jump on my head and loved to be stroked it now keeps well away which is a good thing. A raven who is going to be released must not have imprinted on a human. The crow is doing a good job and I know now that when the time comes they must be released together.

This little chap however has decided it enjoys my company. I don't know why after all the jackdaws I've raised and released none of them think that home is sitting on my arm or shoulder or head but this one does. I have twice let it go and twice after a day or two I've heard it calling from the trees and when it sees me (and admittedly after I've said hello to it) its flown down and landed on my arm, then my shoulder and snuggled up by my neck clearly wanting to go 'home', where it proclaimed it was both thirsty and hungry and what had taken me so long.

So the black and the white runner ducks we hatched from the poor deceased lady ducks killed by the fox have grown into beauties - the black one is female. The two brown ones in the picture on the left which I bought from someone were also female but there they are in the picture on the right no longer brown runner ducks (mallards we suspect)and not female either! As the last sole duckling we hatched from the twelve black Indian runner eggs was white - also turns out to be male too no doubt we'll not be getting many eggs. You may well be considering that recently I've had little luck with runner ducks I only hope the female isn't too harrassed by the boys.

The tiny Peking bantam chick is growing though - she may be female - but yet too small for them both to meet the other flock. I hope they get on. When I introduced the other jackdaw into the shade tunnel the raven actually growled at it and I feared for its safety but they all seemed to have worked out how to co-exist for the time being. When it heard the growling my little jackdaw jumped on my lap and hid in my cardigan though previously had been accepted as part of the corvid clan. All is calm now though.

Nancy tells me that the Ghost Pocket has been haunting her. I don't actually believe that Ghost Pocket has been eating all her food which she assures me he has but Nancy is old now and if making up stories makes her feel better than so be it. As she has miawtzheimers or Feline Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome her yowling has got more insistent and loud - I'm not sure she's still telling us the end of the world is nigh. More than likely she has tourettes.

He doesn't even come in through the cat flap she moans I think he's coming in through the walls. 

Her complaint reminded me of a cat I once had called Arkwright. He was handed to me as a tiny kitten by a woman who knocked on the door in London and asked if he was mine. He was a black and white bruiser of a kitten with no mum. At the time I visited my sister who had a smart and elegant Siamese cat who had just given birth to six ladylike looking  kittens destined for finishing school. Arkwright muscled his way in and started feeding from the mother who miraculously accepted him as one of her own even when he grew twice the size of her precious brood and looked nothing like them.When he was older we put a cat flap in the door but he invited all the neighbouring cats into the house as well so I invested in a magnetic collar that would only let him in through the flap. Trouble was being magnetic he had a tendency to getting stuck to the fridge door and once trotted past with my dress making pins attached to his collar. I wrote a poem about it which if you persevere is at the end of this post.

The Ghost Pocket appeared on the stairs again. Are you suffering from Takotsubo Syndrome? He asked washing behind an ear. What's that ? I queried. 

Broken heart syndrome. He replied. The heart muscles change shape and weaken triggered by the loss of a loved one. He rolled over onto his back. Like me he added.

And the days are not full enough and the nights are not full enough and life slips by like a field mouse not shaking the grass. 

Ezra Pound said that I told him. 

He smirked I know we've had a long chat about field mice. He told me he was once considered one of the most influential and most difficult poets of the 20th century. He paused. His contribution to Modernist poetry are enormous.  

My you are mingling with interesting people I acknowledge. 

Yes and I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhauser Gate.All these moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. Time to die. 

Oh I already have he added. 

Really? I question him. Are you sure you didn't just slip into the Odeon and watch Blade Runner? I think you'll find Rutger Hauer said that.

  I think you'll find that I've just met him. Interesting fella. So was Shakespeare.  

The Ghost Pocket flicked his tail and did exactly as Nancy predicted. He disappeared into the wall.

Animal Magnetism

You seem to have a fatal, metal attraction

drawn inextricably to any iron contraction

an ally of alloy.

Now with your magnetic key

dancing from your collar

you are no longer

the cat who goes forth alone.

I see you clinging like a shadow

to the bucket in the garden

or making overtures to the mower

as you plot a course North.

Not a cat to grace a lap

I saw you in hot pursuit of a toe cap

on a pair of Doc Martens.

I might have found you, your head clamped

to the Art Deco lamp in the hall

or in a clinch

with a crampon in the shed

until recently when you formed an embrace-

ment

with Mrs Lacy's hip replacement

and bonded with the handcuffs

you found under her bed.

Linda Coggin