Animal Antics.

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. ~ St. Francis of Assisi

All the animals around here are mad. Absolute. Raving. Lunatics.

Let's start with the cockatoo, who at least was a visitor & doesn't reside permanently on the premises.

The cockatoo arrived latish in the afternoon & perched on the verandah rail. He was a glossy handsome male who looked like he could eat Issi for lunch, no problem. Dearest called me to look & I dutifully looked because they are very pretty, if destructive & prone to the sort of temper tantrums you expect from a 2 year old.

Luckily Iss was still in bed or things could have got very interesting indeed as Mr Cocky investigated our verandah. It didn't take him long to find the bird feeder. Now Dearest had seen my inept attempts with a hammer & nail & thoughtfully shown me what an improvement it was if I let him do the hammering. Being a dutiful & submissive wife I handed over the hammer & refrained from issuing instructions at the time or I would certainly have pointed out his attempts were not proof against marauding cockies. I'm telling you, this bird was an expert marauder.

I don't encourage the big birds [because they scare away all the little ones] so our feeder was one of those long tube ones with a very small spill tray & Dearest had thoughtfully hung it under the verandah rail beside the birdbath & the tree growing through the deck. Believe me, it wasn't easy to reach, for bird or animal but this cocky took one look & knew he'd just found lunch if only he could get at it.

He hopped along the rail & tried sticking his beak in. The feeder swung about wildly but was proof against all his attempts to get more than a very small dribble of grain. The cockatoo then proceeded to work the nail, twisting it round with his bare beak. Dearest & I watched mesmerized as this bird used his beak as a tool to twist the nail & twist the nail. He hung upside down & had a jolly good look at what he needed to do. He paced along the verandah rail having a jolly good think about it like a Churchillian senator. He looked at it with his other eye, decided he was twisting the wrong way & changed direction. Within moments he was lifting the feeder off its nail with his beak. It was too heavy for him to fly off with the feeder in his mouth or it would have been gone. He attempted to heave it up on to the rail with his talons but the feeder was pretty full & in the end he opted for dropping it on the deck where it broke apart. I'm still looking for all the bits of the feeder.

Issi is, quite simply, a raving lunatic. He has Ditz & my routine down to a T. I'm pretty sure he's worked out which boat we come home on because 10 minutes after the boat goes past the point the car pulls in & he can hear both the boat & the car well before they're anywhere near our place. He also thinks we're stupid. He knows for certain I'm blind.

When I'm gone Iss hangs round Dearest like a bad smell. If I'm gone for longer than usual Iss becomes neurotic & needy & drives Dearest nuts. [Singapore is going to be fun!] When Iss hears that boat he slinks out the door & plants himself in the middle of the drive with the look that says, I have waited here patiently for you all this time. Liar!

We were gone longer than usual last Wednesday. We were a little later leaving the jetty & Iss must have got anxious because as I chugged up the hill towards home a grey & white furball streaked across the road & raced for home like a cheetah. Iss had come looking for us & was a lot further from home than he usually goes but he streaked down the verge frantically, beat us home & was plonked on the bricks looking pained by the time we arrived. He can't fool us. Ditz, who picked him up, giggled, "He's too puffed to even purr."

It's nice to be missed.