![]() His lanky prey took to walking to the shed with a straw broom over his shoulder as protection. Then the tiny predator took to waiting on the gutter above the backdoor, hoping for the Farmer to start the day. The Farmer nonchalantly walked back to the aviary, naively assuming he had this bird in the bag.Īs they got closer, Cocky clamped down his jaw on the Farmer’s fleshy earlobe, sending him jumping and flapping as the bird took flight. That would have been OK because he was relatively benign with me but he did not like the Farmer. I tried to coax him back into his cage but he was having too much fun. I was happy to grant his freedom but the message wasn’t getting through. I imagine wartime London residents used to walk around in a similar manner, glancing into the sky and waiting for the bombings I felt like Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock’s The Birds. He stared in at us through windows, flying around the house like a feathery stalker. He tapped on the glass panes of the front door, yelling “MUM”. He nipped our heels if we didn’t move fast enough. Then he started mustering us like a cattle dog. When the kids carried sticks to shoo him away, Cocky would pick up a twig and yell “Ooooooh!” En garde! The farmer found him up at the dogs, holding the kelpies in their kennels like a schoolmaster. He began acting like a little general, marching around the joint, berating the family for unknown crimes. I imagined a time when he would sit on my shoulder and chat away all day.Ĭocky had other ideas. When the kelpie had pups in the run below his perch, he added puppy yelps to his range, and if the kids were getting particularly boisterous, he barked, as if keeping them in line. He anticipated the farm shed meeting at 7.30am every morning by doing a pitch-perfect impression of a diesel ute turning over. I would come rushing out the back door to find him bobbing up and down on his perch like a lunatic. One of his favourite tricks was yelling “Muuuuum”. There, Cocky prattled and screeched his way through the day, keeping me company when the kids were at school.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |