But I’ve called him Dennis. Dennis after Dennis Glover
“And quardle oodles ardle The Magpies said”.
We met, well, I saw him, riding my bike ride on our cycle trail. Sorry, I was riding the bike, Dennis was aloft.
At first he would swoop down from high up in the tree, quarkling and oodling just above my crash helmet – indeed at times attacking, pecking my helmet. It sounded like a gunshot.
These days I approach slowly, park the bike and walk to his tree. There he is, large, black and white, curious, looking down at me.
I am becoming familiar, no longer a threat. But not yet a friend.
I googled the ‘oodle ardle’ companion of my trail.
“Approach slowly, talk to them, let them get used to you.”
My aunt had a pet magpie. Newcomers were advised to walk slowly to her door. Being aloof, disregarding this ‘watchbird’ could mean a bleeding ankle from a vicious peck.
Summer on the way, daily bike rides, and regular stops to talk to my new mate. But not in the presence of other cyclists who would have to make a detour from this daffy geriatric chatting to nobody they could see.
Dennis knows me, and as I stop below his tree he swoops gracefully down, not far from me and into the paddock. Feeding time, bugs and stuff in the long unchewed grass. Soon the dairy herd will be back. Dairy cows don’t get attacked. They don’t wear crash helmets either.
Time to move
Attraction two: being spring there are baby rabbits. They’re unseen in the long grass, they fling themselves out onto the track, stop stare at me, dart off into the undergrowth. I have to slow down to avoid them.
A mother duck, about ten tiny heads of ducklings following her. A reassuring “Quack!” And they patter along after her. Mother duck doesn’t feed them, ‘you’re on your own Ducky.’
Last stop
A fully grown rabbit, unseen at first because they freeze, moves slowly to a well used burrow. It pauses, I am unable to make rabbit noises, it slips down into its burrow.
