This is the true story of B.B.Bead a Rook teacher and guide. I originally wrote out this story out in episodes, in the One Nature Newsletters.
It was Spring in West Cork Ireland and Clare was cycling against a gale to see a friend, who she had been promising to visit for ages. She was an avid all-weather cyclist but it took her all of six hours to travel the 20 or so miles to reach her destination, the tiny village of Durrus on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula. After a long chat with her friend and many cups of tea, she decided to return home instead of staying the night, which might have been sensible, but given that the wind would be behind her on the return journey, she decided to take advantage of being blown home.
It had been an emotional time for Clare over the past few months prior to that day, as the love of her life, Andrew had met another woman and moved in with her and yet he and Clare continued to see each other occasionally, which wasn’t very conducive to the happiness of any of the three of them.
Clare started the long journey back from her friend’s house, but pulled to a quick halt at the bottom of the hill, for on the road in front of her lay a large broken nest containing three dead chicks. On the grass verge at the side of the road staring intently up at her was one very alive chick. It was black, downy and quite large for a chick. She thought that it was some sort of Crow and that the nest must have blown down from the tall trees above the road. As there was no way she could reassemble the nest, let alone return it to where it had come from, she hesitated for a moment, before scooping up the chick and placing it into the front of her jacket and securing a belt tightly round her waist, so that the bird wouldn’t fall out.
Barely 5 minutes later Clare recognized immediately the car that pulled up. It was Andrew, telling her in no uncertain terms that he could no longer continue to see her. The news which would have been devastating at any other time wasn’t now, for getting the bird home and hopefully getting it to live, were all of a sudden her top priorities.
After three hours of cycling, one mishap when the bird fell out and a few feeding stops (cat food out of a tin) she arrived home. Clare made a nest out of a box filled with straw and put the bird into the airing cupboard for the night. She would wait till next morning to see if it had survived. Until then she had done all that she could.
The next morning Clare opened the airing cupboard door with some trepidation. It was quiet and still in there and a streak of bird excrement on the wood indicated, she thought, the creature’s passing into the next world. She shut the airing cupboard door and went outside to collect a spade to bury the creature and as she removed the box from the airing cupboard, suddenly up popped the chick, squawking very loudly, opening a huge red gaping beak, wanting without a doubt, some breakfast. Clare laughed out loud with relief, joy and surprise.
After its cat food breakfast, Clare phoned the local wildlife expert to ask for advice on how best to look after the chick and she learnt that the bird was in fact a Rook, not a Crow and that it was alright to feed it cat food, along with mashed up egg, meat, fish and bread in milk. Also, to feed the bird with something pointed resembling a beak (she used a cocktail stick) so as to get the food into the back of the chick’s throat, to mimic as far as possible the way its parents would feed it. Clare also improved on her improvised version of a nest, by filling a large mixing bowl with straw.
At that point in her life, Clare lived on a woman called Sylvia’s estate, where she worked a few mornings a week in the garden. When Sylvia first saw the chick sitting inside the mixing bowl nest, she exclaimed: ‘When that bird grows up and it comes to nesting time, it’s going to have a hard time finding a mixing bowl to make a nest in!’ Sylvia had her own bird, a parrot called Blueboy and so Clare was able put the chick plus mixing bowl into one of Blueboy’s old cages, to protect it from the cat. She was anxious about her cat’s reaction to all this, which as it transpired, turned out to be one of complete disgust. It looked very much as though her cat Ginge was saying ‘How could you possibly bring that ‘thing’ into my house and actually like it!?’
The chick was a voracious and demanding eater and Clare was extremely glad that she only had one bird to look after. During those first few days together, there came a significant moment, when the chick looked Clare straight in the eyes and held her gaze for a moment. It was then, Clare felt, that a bond between them was formed and that she was accepted by the chick as its mother. Needless to say that during this flurry of activity, Clare hadn’t given even the slightest thought to her emotional problems.
Learning how to be a bird’s mother was no easy task, so it was fortunate for both Clare and the bird that they had the local wildlife expert to ask for advice, as he was often at Sylvia’s place doing odd jobs around the house. At one point, Clare thought that the chick must be thirsty and put some water down the back of its throat with a spoon, but she must have put the water down the chick’s windpipe instead of throat, as it began to choke. Clare was advised to turn the bird upside down and to let the water drain out that way. The chick looked surprised at being held upside down by its feet, but the technique worked and out trickled the water.
As the young Rook got bigger, it moved out of the mixing bowl nest and began perching on the edge of the table and stretching and flapping its wings. Soon Clare began to take the chick outside and let it peck in the ground beside her as she was gardening. It was amazing to see just how many little insects there were for the chick to eat, not usually discernible to human eyes. The chick tried out lots of plants to see if they were food, much to Sylvia’s chagrin, when her seedlings were uprooted.
Clare and Sylvia wondered how on earth they could go about teaching the chick to fly. The wildlife expert had told them, that the bird would begin flying when both its wings and legs had developed fully enough. So, when it seemed as though the time was right and that this had happened, Clare took the young bird outside for flight training and starting from a small height with a slight toss, let the chick go in the air, which forced it to flap its wings and then steady itself on landing.
However, in reality there was no need to do any teaching to this creature; the young bird knew instinctively how to strengthen its wings and how to take the steps (or flaps in this case) to begin to learn to how fly, without any help from the human family, who didn’t really have much of a clue.
The Rook grew rapidly in size, capability and confidence. (Clare guessed that the bird was a female, so I’ll carry on calling the bird she from now on). She took to sitting on Clare’s shoulder and as you can imagine this was more than a little messy, so Clare had to wear her oldest waterproof while gardening with the bird in attendance. The bird began to search for food independently and tried just about everything that came within the reach of her beak. This included insects, flowers, seeds, pastry, meat, almost anything it seemed. She loved to play with the dog, swooping and pouncing on her from a height. As her wings became stronger though, this game became a bit tame for her and she turned instead to flying in wider and wider circles around the property.
At about this time the garden was opened to the public and the bird became a feature of the garden. This could be pleasant or terrifying for the people graced by her presence as she tended to attack their feet, or if she liked the look of them, land unexpectedly on their shoulders. Children loved her and many photos were taken of her on Clare’s shoulder. She had a habit, when the sun was shining brightly, of opening up her wings,
beak, feathers and eyes as though she was absorbing every atom of the sun’s rays. It was very strange to see her like this and she looked to Clare like a Pterodactyl. Although Clare loved her bird friend, neither the cat Ginge, nor Sylvia the owner of the garden liked her anywhere nearly so much. For she tended to frighten Ginge by swooping on him whenever she saw him and annoyed Sylvia to distraction, by uprooting her tender young seedlings.
Sylvia was getting so frustrated with the destruction of her beloved garden by the bird, that she threatened her, in jest Clare hoped, with ‘I’ll wring your neck!’ The atmosphere between them was getting more and more tense and Clare wondered what on earth she should do? Perhaps it was time to move and find somewhere else to live? Someplace where the bird wouldn’t be so much of a nuisance? It was around about this time that Clare decided to name the bird – B.B.Bead.
A day or two later, Clare went out to work on her bicycle, but had a puncture on the way and so rather than being out for a few hours, was away from home for most of the day. When she returned there was no sign of B.B.Bead. Clare hunted high and low, calling and waiting for the familiar flap of wings, but she never saw the bird again.
Clare was bereft and sat in the garden calling to the bird in her mind. As she sat there immersed in the sorrow of her loss, the whole scene appeared to shift and change, everything shimmered and became inseparably connected. Within a profound harmony of infinite perfection, a tiny blue spark came towards her. Clare felt that it was B.B.Bead’s spirit.
Clare often wondered what happened to the bird: Did she die? Or did she wander further than usual looking for Clare and join her own kind, the flock of Rooks that lived in the woods further down the Estuary? For weeks and months after B.B.Bead disappeared, whenever the flock of Rooks flew overhead, as they did morning and evening, Clare would feel herself turning into one of their number and it was as if she flew with them.
Looking back on the whole experience, Clare felt that B.B.Bead had helped to heal her emotional wounds in so many ways and had, by her very presence, ushered Clare into a new way of being in the world. One of connection, joy and thankfulness for the wonder of life.
I wrote this story out in the third person, you might have guessed that its my story. This bird has been and continues to be a huge influence in my life. She inspired me to make the video Woman of the Birds which started me out in film making. She also initiated in me into the idea of One Nature which has been growing ever since I met her.
Rook, Crows and Raven’s are known in many traditions as Soul Carriers.
