Last night Richard and I wandered up to
The Farmers Arms at about nine. At the top of Chapel Street the dude who owns the fiush and chip shop had parked his van, and from underneath the van came a scrabbling noise. It was a semi fledged baby jackdaw which had obviously fallen out of its nest on the roof of the village shop.
Every time we tried to catch the poor little bugger, it scuttled further beneath the van, until eventually we had to borrow a pool cue from the pub in order to persuade it to come out into the open.
We picked it up, and this is where the heartrending bit happened: Its parents, alerted t
o the plight of their youngster by its squawks, divebombed us and started to mob us. I am getting more and more interested in (and impressed by) the social behaviour of corvids, since the two wild crows started visiting our captive one each morning for what I anthropomorphically surmise is a `chat`, or even a `prison visit`.
We got the jackdaw home, and into a hospital cage where we gave it mealworms, wildbird mix, a pheasant egg and some water, covered up its cage with a towel, and left it for the night. I am waiting for one of the qualified folk (Oll or Richard) to wake up before disturbing it, so at the time
of writing it is in a state of indeterminancy something like Schrödinger's eponymous Cat.
If it has survived, then it should be fully fledged reasonably soon (in the cold light of day, I see that I overestimated its age last night - but it
was the dimpsey), and we shall release it. If not, at least we saved it from being played with and killed by a cat, or stomped on by a drunken teenage lout (of which there were a disturbing number wandering, shouting, round the village last night).
Watch this space...
UPDATE: The little bugger has survived the night, but is looking a little subdued. This is quite understandable, and we hope that he will perk up when he is moved into a proper aviary later today..
...and I know several people who are going to be receiving one of these in their Christmas stocking this year, and thanks to the jolly nice people at sasqwatchwatch some are being given away as raffle prizes for the Weird Weekend...
I was just sent this by a blog reader called Betty:
It all started with a mealy mouthed story from Fox News, who probably have not forgiven me for my social faux pas in making a Charles Manson joke to one of their reporters whilst on camera and (I think) live TV. In a typically mealy mouthed way they reported that the blog of some dude called Drew Grant's, "which has a not-safe-for-work name we won't repeat", has just solved the mystery of the Montauk Monster.
I don't know who Drew Grant is either, but he tells a very convincing story of how the Montauk Monster, with strange bandage like ties around the extremities of its limbs, ended up on Montauk Beach.
Now, my friend isn’t the type to take dead animals and set them on fire and float them off in the sea (he’s vegan), but, in his words, “this creature was honored with a Viking funeral, not merely exploited for crass entertainment.” Basically, though, they were just being dumb. “In the interest of full disclosure,” he admits, “this did happen shortly after a waterboarding endurance competition, and just before a clothespins-on-your-genitals challenge."
Well, for reasons that will only make sense to me and Max, the young jackdaw is called Gerry. As you can see, the baffled little fellow of this morning has recovered his panache and developed a taste for mince and mealworms, as well as raw egg.
I have no pretensions at being a theologian. Indeed, one day, when feeling particularly exasperated I let out a verbal ejaculation which prompted my brother the vicar to remark that there was no evidence - even in the Apocrypha - that bicycles were around in the First Century, and even less evidence that Our Saviour had ever ridden one.
of Martyrs Catholic Church is obviously the truth.
This is one of a remarkable series of pictures sent to me by Dave McMann last week, and published in the British Daily Mail. They show what happened at a private animal collection in the UK when a small rodent wandered into a leopard cage and tried to take its lunch.
It took a little searching through the archives to turn this up. It was incidentally the first report of any type I had heard about as coming from Lake Champlain.
Last night Richard and I wandered up to The Farmers Arms at about nine. At the top of Chapel Street the dude who owns the fiush and chip shop had parked his van, and from underneath the van came a scrabbling noise. It was a semi fledged baby jackdaw which had obviously fallen out of its nest on the roof of the village shop.
o the plight of their youngster by its squawks, divebombed us and started to mob us. I am getting more and more interested in (and impressed by) the social behaviour of corvids, since the two wild crows started visiting our captive one each morning for what I anthropomorphically surmise is a `chat`, or even a `prison visit`.
of writing it is in a state of indeterminancy something like Schrödinger's eponymous Cat.