Magic moment

Something quite unusual is happening in our back -yard. Actually, it’s a side-yard. It’s a fairly large timber deck with lots of pot plants and things around the edges. Short pots. Tall pots. Red ones. Grey ones. There’s also a 1metre high fence along the long edge of the deck and behind this fence a row of James Stirling trees. In the one at each end of this row of there is a possum nest. That in itself is quite unusual. But that’s not the unusual thing I want to tell you about.

Since the start of lock-down, we have had 2 very interesting visitors. They were not part of our ‘garden’ experience prior to COVID-19; they were always around the area but never on our deck. We could hear them calling from big trees in the neighbourhood but we rarely saw them close up.

I’m talking about 2 really large Ravens.

Even if I’m sitting outside they will swoop down and land on the fence. One arriving shortly after the other. They sit for a short while. Surveying the space. Then they hop down and walk about the deck – not as they own it, but like it’s part of their territory and I’m in it. They walk from pot to pot. Looking up and inspecting the underside of leaves and branches for insects or berries. Sometimes they just stand there turning their heads from side to side as if they are listening for something. They are so confident and if I stay very still, they come quite close. Every now and then they will walk to the glass sliding-door and look inside the house. Curious but not intrusive. At times it feels like we are together in this space and caught up in some kind of spell, with neither of us wanting to do anything sudden in case the spell gets broken.

Then without warning and by some form of communication that does not include me, they both take to the skies. The spell is broken but the magic remains – for a little while at least.

So, I take a sip of my coffee. Savouring the moment and letting the magic fade as gently and as quietly as it appeared.

Shalom

David