Rooks

Dear Reader,

                                                                            Cornish Country Gardens





I am going to Cornwall this week so no time for research into something interesting, or at least, what I think is interesting! and I hope you do too.  So I will just up-date you on the seagull story.

Apparently junk food may not only be bad for humans - it could also make seagulls more aggressive,
according to a researcher looking at their behaviour.  This researcher, one Rebecca Lakin, is studying the impact of urban environment on young gulls across the city, and whether feasting on stolen fish and chips makes them increasingly angry. This study compares the chips and ice cream diet of urban gulls with the traditional menu of fish and clams of their island cousins.  In her research she explores how food digested by gulls will affect them later in life.


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Rooks

I was fourteen
when I first heard
the call of the rooks
caw-cawing
their eerie cries.

From a Cornish cottage garden
I walked down through
dark woods to the beach,
a remote place,
just dunes, sand, the sea
and me, a confused, angry teenager,
with the rooks caw-cawing in my ears
disturbing my thoughts.

Even now, in later years,
whenever I hear whispers from the wind,
or sea lapping over large grey stones
ever forward, ever backward,
glimpse a faraway horizon
and see twilight descending
darkening the sky,
the rooks in large black groups
flying high towards
their eveniong bed,
cawing, cawing, cawing,
my heart misses a beat
and an unexplained sadness
overcomes me.
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With very best wishes, Patricia