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| Jacky Can The Cosmic Jackdaw |
I received a comment back from one of my friends: "tweet, tweet, tweet".
My reply was: "2 wit...2 woo, 2 wit...2 woo".
My friend's reply was: "yes I know".
To all intents and purposes that was the end of that, or so I thought!
A few days after that Facebook posting, along came Jacky Can (As I named him) the Cosmic Jackdaw!
From My Hearth To My Heart: A Jackdaw Calls
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| Bracken My Rescue Cat |
Then along came Bracken, a cat I rescued, and there were no more mice! Bracken even brings them in from outside, through the cat flap. She brings them in live! Why I have an exclamation mark is because she uses them as practice to keep in mouse catching trim. Well of course to Bracken this is a game she loves and I loathe! I don't loathe it because of what she is naturally doing; I loathe it because of how she lets it go and then darts about after it. I attempt to catch the poor mouse, and sometimes do, and get it by the tale and set it free back through the cat flap, with Bracken in hot pursuit!
Sometimes the mouse, though, will not be captured either by Bracken or I, it disappears beneath a sofa or armchair and Bracken waits in prey mode, and maybe the next morning I will find the remnants of the mouse, which Bracken has left as a gift to show me how good she's been.
I know this may appear to be like a scene from a horror movie, but that's just how nature is. It's not like some Japanese whaling boat chasing whales or Canadians clubbing seals! But I do still feel for the mouse!
So there I was, this noise is coming from behind the fireplace and I think nothing of it, as it is bound to be another mouse that has escaped Bracken or a one trying to get in to my pantry (not that I have a pantry), but not so! I could hear a sort of squawking noise. At first it was barely audible, and certainly didn't sound like a mouse. As I listened more intently I picked up that it was in fact a bird!
Because I live in a rural location we have all sorts of birds nesting in the nearby trees, even at times they have been known to build a nest in a wall crevice. Maybe it was one of those birds that had somehow fallen down the chimney.
After some time I managed to disassemble the fireplace and there is was ... a bird that was quite black. It was lucky for the bird that the fireplace it fell down was converted to accommodate a gas fire, which meant no live flames or massive amounts of heat going directly up the chimney. The gas fire configuration meant that the actual chimney itself is set back from the fire, leaving quite a gap behind the sealed unit, and this is where the bird was.
I took hold of the bird, and at first I thought it was some sort of mature medium-sized bird, but on closer inspection I could see it was a baby! And there in a broken bundle was the nest, all twigs, rather large ones at that. They were all dried out and had obviously dried out and shrunk over time, hence the next collapsing. I checked closely to see if any other baby birds were there, but it was only the one.
Come Fly With Me: Is It A...
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| Jacky Can The Cosmic Jackdaw - First Day Of Rescue |
I wasn't really sure what I was doing, but I guessed the bird would take water if it was dehydrated, as even though the gas fire was a sealed unit, it must have still been hot behind it. I now know that if you just coat the side of the bird's beak with water then it will lick it off with its tongue. I then wondere4d what I could give it to eat? Yes, cat food would do as I had heard of people feed rescued birds cat or dog food. I feed the bird some of Bracken's food from a set of old tweezers I had lying around. Wow! It loved it, its mouth was gaping wide and I ensured the pieces were small enough to be easily eaten by the bird, well not so much eaten but swallowed!
So after a while the bird was bedded down for the night and the following morning it looked a lot cleaner and I could actually tell what type of bird it was a, erm, crow! Or so I thought!
I found the phone numbers for some animal rescue places and rang them, but none of them took birds in. I then rang the official channels and they were of little help, it was as if though I were going around in circles! SO I dug around on the internet and was rather taken aback by how some rescue birds were mishandled and even how some o the official places we expect to do their best don't! I do not want to go into detail, but needless to say that after reading this sort of stuff I was not keen on the bird going to one of these places.
I also searched the internet for images of baby crows, and found nothing like the bird I had, so I expanded my search and eventually found it to resemble a jackdaw! In fact it WAS a jackdaw, and I instantly named him (as I feel it is a he) Jacky. So Jacky was to remain with me until as such time as I could, somehow, reunited him with his parents.
I had a brainwave! I went out and looked up at the chimney, although what I was hoping for I do not really know. Perhaps the mother bird would be there and if I waved her baby around then maybe she would fly down and thank me before flying off with him.
I did manage to speak on the telephone with a rather knowledgeable person, he advised putting the box up a nearby tree and that the mother would maybe pick up on this and actually nest in the box while looking after her baby. All sounded so simple!
The Birds!
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| Jacky Can's Tree Lodge |
While this was going on I was frantically building a wooden base that I could nail up in the nearby tree I had selected to put the box up that Jacky was in. Saw, saw, saw! Bang, bang, bang! After a while I had fashioned some sort of wooden base that would fit a particular gap in the branches I had selected where the box was to go.
Now from ground level it all looks quite easy when looking up to where you want things to go in a tree, but when you are up the ladder and holding a wood frame, hammer and nails it's all a little shaky! Of course the tribe of jackdaws I had attracted with the recording being played of other jackdaws made it seem an intolerable job, so I dumbed down the noise of the recording and eventually had a holding tank that I had placed on the wooden base in place. This holding tank, actually an old plastic water tank I had lying around, would accommodate the box Jacky was in, as I didn't fancy the cardboard box becoming wet if it rained and Jacky falling out of it.
After what seemed like an age, I had Jacky safely placed into his tree lodge. I stood back and admired my handiwork! I have to admit, I am not gifted when it comes to working with wood! The first set of wooden stilts I ever made as a young teenager snapped soon as I got on them, and ever since I have been equally as skilled with anything I have made out of wood!
Tchac-tchack-tchack
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| Mammy Or Daddy Jackdaw On The Chimney Pot |
During the day other jackdaws would fly around rapidly calling out, "Tchac-tchack-tchack". It seemed I had drawn them in even when I had stopped playing the recording of other jackdaws calling out. I had been concentrating so hard on drawing Jacky's parents in that I must have connected with quite a few other jackdaws. Some were making a "'kaaar-kaaar-kaaar" cawing, which I discovered is a warning!
Day turned into dusk and still no commitment from the parents to come to Jacky's aid, so I had the job of climbing up to his tree lodge to feed him, which I did when the parents had flown off to wherever they went for up to half an hour at a time. I wasn't going to leave Jacky up the tree all night so I took him in, as even though he was quite high up there was still a chance that some other animal could get at him or if it turned cold during the night he might not be used to it.
As A Conscious Empath I Could Feel Jacky Can's Energy
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| Perch King Jacky Can |
I really don't want Jacky to become too attached to me and me to him, as my aim is to get him back out there with his fellow jackdaws as soon as he's ready. Although I know the best laid plans of mice and men are aft to go astray, I am keen to ensure he is in a fit state to give him a fighting chance.
Of course because I am a conscious empath I have the ability to connect to energy, and I don't mean what comes through the electrical sockets, because I feel energy in others, and that could be a high vibrational state or a low vibrational state, it makes it difficult for me not to feel for Jacky and how daunting it is for him to be in such a position as he is now. So to try to remain emotionally detached for me is, at times, like asking my rescue cat Bracken not to chase mice!
Walked Like A Man With His Pants Falling Down
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| Bracken On The Prowl For Mice |
Not long after I set the CD playing the jackdaw signature "kar-r-r, kar-r-r, kar-r-r" the parents of Jacky flew in, and it was rather like a train arriving on time as they touched down on the chimney stack of the house. The parents and Jacky exchanged kar-r-rs, but that was as far as it went. "What's wrong with them?" I thought to myself as I wondered why they weren't flying to the tree lodge to check on Jacky.
One of my Facebook friends commented that maybe the parents didn't come to feed him because they wanted him to leave the lodge on his own and then they would feed him as he was grounded, so to speak. Well of course with Bracken wandering free and a multitude of other neighborhood cats on the loose it wouldn't have done to have Jacky on the ground, not that he could really walk that well. In fact when he walked he looked a little like a man with his pants falling down!
Jacky' Can's Pseudo FlightI decided to bring Jacky down from the lodge, as I was concerned that if he managed to jump to the top of the box and somehow drag himself out that he would fall the considerable distance to the ground. Although I had consciously shrouded the area around the tree with my thoughts of love, it was better to be safe than sorry.
I had read somewhere on the internet that you could hold a bird by its body and get it moving its wings. So I had a go. I held Jacky quite firmly but gently by his body, which felt full of energy and I started walking fast with him, rather like a child holds a model airplane, except I wasn't making airplane noises.
As Jacky became more confident I started raising and lowering him and I ran a little faster until I was jogging with him, of course I was totally oblivious to my neighbor seeing me running around holding my arm out straight in front of me with Jacky flapping his wings! That was until I noticed my neighbor mesmerized at what he saw! Hmmm, well! A grown man running with a flapping bird in his stretched out arm must have looked a right sight! Anyway, I was pleased to see Jacky using his wings and certainly I could feel the power he had, but not quite enough for him to fly solo. Judging by the energy I could feel coming off Jacky, he loved it! His little blue eyes were smiling.
I then put Jacky in his box, but I didn't return him to his tree lodge. I placed him on a rockery in his box, I then realized he had no cover from the sun so got an umbrella and placed it so as to block the sun. I felt like a protective father with his children at the beach.
When dusk came in I took Jacky in, as all what had happened was the same as before, parents and child exchanging "kar-r-r" and" kya" sounds.
Jacky Can Has New Flight Cage
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| Jacky Can Safe In His Flight Cage |
The cage was more for Jacky's protection from cats, as I wanted him to still have some communication with his parents but also for him to be able to stretch and do the exercises fledglings do with their wings in readiness to fly. As soon as I put Jacky outside he started to call for his parents, and within five minutes they flew in with their kar-r-r, kar-r-ring and were back on the chimney stack. Jacky was calling out like Placido Domingo in his solo operatic career, I was proud of him. He had a new resonance and power to his calls.
I had hoped that the new flight cage would have this effect, and I was right. Sadly, though, the parents just looked down and only returned Jacky's calls, they did not fly down to him. Ah well, at least they were still in communication. All day I sat with Jacky, well not in the cage with him! I still do not want to humanize him, as such a majestic creature should be flying free, not caged. I wouldn't be able to have Jacky fly around and be my friend as Bracken would go all sulky and of course when a cat is jealous it can only lead to one thing. So for Jacky's protection I look forward to the day when he flies off into the sunset.
Be Careful What You Wish For!
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| Jacky Can Will Melt The Toughest Of Hearts |
You will recall how I received a comment back from one of my friends: "tweet, tweet, tweet", and my reply of, "wit...2 woo, 2 wit...2 woo", and then my friend's reply to this: "yes I know".
I realized that this exchange of dialogue between had created a Cosmic Order, as two days after this
I received Jacky Can the Cosmic Jackdaw down my chimney!
I posted this on the Facebook comment's page beneath my friend's last posting:
"Do you know I have just realized something! When we went through this dialogue between us do you know where it led? Well on the 24 May (two days after this) was when I received Jacky Can the Cosmic Jackdaw down my chimney! Be careful what you wish for is sort of correct in this case ..."
My friend's reply to this was:
"You were obviously wishing for a little birdie to be a guardian to! That is very fast manifesting."
So I guess the moral of the story is, be careful what you wish for!
(A note of caution, wild birds should not be made into pets although to let Mother Nature take its course is not often a nice sight! I believe if what it takes to reach a positive outcome then you can bend nature somewhat, but then let nature take its course in a natural way.)
William Cowper's Poem The Jackdaw
There is a bird who, by his coat
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow;
A great frequenter of the church,
Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.
Above the steeple shines a plate,
That turns and turns, to indicate
From what point blows the weather.
Look up -- your brains begin to swim,
'Tis in the clouds -- that pleases him,
He chooses it the rather.
Fond of the speculative height,
Thither he wings his airy flight,
And thence securely sees
The bustle and the rareeshow,
That occupy mankind below,
Secure and at his ease.
You think, no doubt, he sits and muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall.
No; not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.
He sees that this great roundabout,
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says -- what says he? -- Caw.
Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men;
And, sick of having seen 'em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine
And such a head between 'em.
William Cowper 1731-1800
Copyright Stephen Richards
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