five go rewilding

So Quigley was the first to go.

 Actually he found a gap somewhere and flew off then spent the next two days squawking loudly on top of the tunnel, in front of the tunnel, behind the tunnel and from a nearby hay bale. So I opened the door and a day later Mouse flew out to join him on top of the dustbin. She flew off to explore and then the rook with no name eventually left after I’d gone.  I thought that was it until Quigley turned up back inside the tunnel demanding to be fed. The next day Mouse had returned and then Noname. It works really well – they fly around the sky, sit in the tree tops then come back inside when they want a bit of nosh.

When it rains they all sit in a row looking grumpy on a branch inside. Or if I’m a bit late in the morning with the food they also sit there looking grumpy with a what time do you call this ? sort of look on their faces.

When I feed the Jims - Mouse lands on my shoulder squawking loudly in my ear, pecks at my clothing and demands to be fed too. He’s just trying it on but I still pop some tasty morsel – more than likely a piece of cheese which they all love- into his gaping mouth. I love watching them flying up in the sky – wheeling in the thermals. It’s hard to tell if they’ve been accepted by the Rookery Boys. I suspect they are planning their own rookery inside the poly tunnel. They’ve certainly made a tribe of three so far. Although I know it’s usually best to let nature take its course and I have purposely not picked up two other young rooks from the track as I would have done if I didn’t have a rookery of my own, it was sad to find both of them dead the following day. If I found dead rooks I used to bury them in the leaves but now see the sense in leaving them to feed some other animal as long as it’s not Rocket or Pocket. We have put rings on a couple of the birds here so we know should I find a dead bird that it's not one of "ours".

So now I've had to shut them out as the Jims are learning to fly properly inside the tunnel. Soon they'll be gone too. Young jackdaws are sweet, curious, affectionate, destructive and demanding and they're meant to be wild. I saw two youngsters for sale on Face Book for £150 each. This is not right but apparently legal if they've been born in captivity. I can't imagine that knowledge makes them feel any better if they can't taste the wind and the clouds and be as wild as shadows in the grass.

The rooks are really cross that the door is now closed to them and I've had to buy a bird table to put outside the poly door. Mouse is on look out on top of the grain feeder on the farm and when she sees me coming in the morning she yells out, madly flapping her wings and is sitting on the bird table before I can get there. Although the others join her she is the only one who likes to sit on my arm as she eats - the others have truly rewilded and don't like me getting too close.

The garden ducks have decided to rewild too, they've found a gap in the hedge and gone native, marching off to the yard and rummaging around the straw bales looking like a bunch of old biddies  scrapping over items at a jumble sale. The black duck is the leader and very much in charge. When he's had enough he leads them back in a straight line through the hedge and into the garden.

This is Mouse or Quigley on the straw bale.

Rocket likes to lie on his back his paws akimbo as if his legs are fashioned into origami shapes. When asleep they kick and he whimpers and snuffles as he dreams. Here he is doing the same thing in mid-air as he flies through the long grass on a day outing to the Isle of Wight.

 Pixie's very interesting fact is that Biophilia is the love of nature and living things. She thinks I might be a Biophiliac.

 Pocket has taken up reading.  I asked him why he was doing that and he said "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." And I said you must have been reading Kafka. And he said "Don't you mean Katka?"

It's been a glorious year for roses. Here are just a few of the different varieties we have in the garden.

The Meadow

by Wendell Berry

In the town's graveyard the oldest plot now frees itself
of sorrow, the myrtle of the graves grown wild. the last
who knows the faces who had these names are dead,
and now the names fade, dumb on the stones, wild
as shadows in the grass, clear to the rabbit and the wren.
Ungrieved, the town's ancestry fits the earth. they become
a meadow, their alien marble grown native as maple.