Travels with my camera

It started well, I woke with one of my headaches, and had to take a migraine pill first thing. Now I had this one day in the week, exactly the same situation, took a pill, and my head cleared, I felt good. So today, didn't get rid of my headache, and also made me feel sick. Anyway, had a shower and knew that I had to clean out my aviary, it was the main plan for the day, and was well overdue.

Then my jacket which hangs on the back of the door fell on the floor, so I picked it up, and re-hung it, and the brass coat hook thing snapped.

Then I was wiping down the worktop, and picked up a bag that had some guinea pig food in it, and it spilled all over the place, so instead of a couple of crumbs on the worktop, I then had about a mugful of guinea pig food on the worktop and all over the kitchen floor.

So what else could happen I wondered? I soon found out.

I was out in my aviary and had almost finished when I kept hearing a strange noise from the field behind. I thought maybe the farmer was looking at the growth or moving his scarecrow things (which didn't work). Anyway, I came out and heard voices from behind my shed, and could then see it was the boy from the house behind and his dear little mates, shooting air rifles into the field, presumably. Well I haven't mentioned this on my blog before, but I did post on forums at the time because I was so upset, but this time last year, the boy shot and killed a male blackbird that was feeding chicks (still had lots of worms in his beak) in my garden. He also shot a rook out of the air which landed in my garden with a shattered wing, which I had to take to the vets to be put to sleep. Previously to this, I had found another dead rook, and two jackdaws in my garden, which didn't have any noticable wounds. I went round and spoke to the mother, and received no apology. They've not spoken to me since, I threatened that if it ever happened again, I would phone the police and the RSPB (my vet advised me to do this at the time) but to be honest, I feared revenge, so thought I'd give him another chance.

This time, I thought no way, you aren't going to get away with it, they were firing right along the edge of my garden, and actually standing about 5 yards from my garden doing it. I knew darn well they'd been firing at birds, it was so obvious. So I phoned the police, told them the story from last year, and they said they'd send an officer out. I had two more phone calls to confirm all the details from the police.

I ate my sandwich and wandered outside with an apple to see if they were still doing it, and I am 99% certain that a pellet went within a couple of feet of my head. I was standing near my back door, and something whizzed past me and hit the wall. I couldn't find anything though.

I then took my dog out and came back to find the police officer in my road, I spoke to him and he said he was just going round to see the lads now and would call in when he came back. He was gone about half an hour. When he returned, he told me he had told them of the law concerning the firing of an air rifle. It is apparently allowed within the boundaries of your own property, as long as no pellets leave your own property, but they cannot fire across another property or into the field without the permission of the land owner. He said he knows the family (that's what I thought, I guess they were probably saying I am an old cow to him and attract vermin by feeding the birds, but that is all supposition) He said that he doubted there would be any repercussions and that the boy wasn't a known troublemaker etc.

Anyway, he went away and I thought I'd cut the grass before the football started and did a bit of it, and when I got down to the end near the telegraph pole there was a jackdaw on the ground, obviously in distress, just hopping to get away from me, and falling over to one side. It had blood above its eye and elsewhere on its head. I managed to catch it and examine, and it's eyelid has been split and there's a fairly deep wound across the top of its skull. I managed to bathe it, get all the blood off, and put him in a box with some water and food. I phoned the police again, and got put through to an inspector this time. He sent the original officer back to examine the bird, and he is getting in touch with the the Police Wildlife Officer to see what can be done if anything. The bird is not looking good, and I will see how he goes, if still alive in the morning, will have to assess whether he needs some antibiotics and take him down the vets, or maybe he will be able to be released hopefully.

I've missed bits out of this I think, there's so much going on in my head, it has completely stuffed my day, but I'm not going to tolerate this anymore. He is an evil little turd and if I hear that rifle going off again, I shall go round there and stuff it up his bloody arse. I wish I could think of ways of getting my revenge, am working on that now. I've had a gutful.

May post some more later, not sure. :-(