Years ago one of my brothers spent some time living in rural France. A neighbour had a goat on a chain in his garden and when the goat would tangle itself up in the chain my brother would untangle it. It was apparently funny and charming to see my brother tenderly freeing the animal while berating it for its stupidity. The anti-caprine tirade was delivered in sweary English so the goat never understood a word of it.
On Sunday I found myself in a similar situation when I wasted hours trying to free a juvenile blackbird from my garage. I was furious with it and its stupidity, but I still wanted it to be reunited with its mother. My garage has a pitch roof. The bird hopped in through the door and was then scared when it saw me working at the vice. It's tree instincts kicked in and it went up into the rafters and wouldn't come down. My first attempt was to let its mother lure it out, she had a treat in her beak and was calling encouragingly, but it didn't work and she gave up after about an hour. I failed to trap it in a duvet cover, and I failed to frighten it towards the door. I spent another hour harassing it with a stick so that it could only rest on the lower level beams within sight of the door. It still didn't really work but the mother came back into the garage. With her calling it from below and my stick threatening it from above it did eventually leave. Team work!
Richard "Bird Brain" B
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