The voodoo

Back when I was playing football there was one particular member of the team who was unfailingly enthusiastic and supremely motivated. The problem was: He was also useless.

Running about like the proverbial headless chicken during training (he never started a match and was rarely used as a substitute, excepting when we were being so badly beaten it mattered little who was replaced), the young man could hardly kick a ball, never mind score a goal.

Between tripping over his own feet, the ball bouncing off his face and / or inadvertently starting rows through his zenith clumsiness, he never improved, at least not in any perceptible way. However, neither did he ever give up.

I was reminded of this congenital battler last week betwixt thoughts of murdering crows and wishing Waffle could fly. I shall explain…

For the past while now (it could have been happening for a month or it could have been happening for a week – it’s amazing how sleep deprivation hurts a soul), we’ve been plagued with crows in the early hours. This ‘plague’ manifests itself in two distinct ways.

First, a Hooded Crow has taken to pecking at its reflection in the window at the front door. In the wee hours, with the sun threatening to rise and when all is a-quiet in a house, this pecking sounds like a bear clawing at your dreams with the result that it becomes slightly difficult to maintain slumber.

Second, another Hooded Crow (perhaps the same vain pecker), has taken to sitting on a telegraph pole at the edge of the garden and crowing his little hooded head off. In the wee hours, with the sun kissing the eastern horizon and when all through the house not a creature is stirring not even a Waffle, this crowing is enough to send a body’s head astray – hence, the murderous thoughts.

I recall over-hearing a conversation from years ago when a Magpie had started pecking at a former neighbours’ window. When a local elderly woman was told of this development she suggested, “Someone has put the voodoo on them.”

Personally, I’m hoping this isn’t the case with my H of a crow at home, although who am I to scoff at the black magic and its many machinations.

Initially, to combat both crows’ wayward habits, I would have risen in those wee hours, stamped up to the glass at the front door and informed the crow in clear and colourful language to where it should off. Then, when the crowing got up from the telegraph pole, I would have opened the bedroom window and made a similar declaration. Neither of these tactics worked, mind you. Both crowds would take flight but then the pecking and the crowing would soon recommence.

“Maybe I’ll get Waffle out and he’ll scare them off,” I thought stupidly.

This tack had much the same success as my own impotent declarations insofar as the crows only temporarily departed from their wayward habits only to return shortly after. And yet it was particularly funny watching Waffle fall into the ditch on one occasion when he was chasing a crow from its telegraph perch and didn’t look where he was going.

“If only you could fly, Waff,” I told him. “Then you’d show them.”

However, because the Hound had been geed up through these excursions in these wee hours, when he went back to bed he couldn’t sleep for the excitement and so started whining. This added a new discordant harmony of sound to the ever-present pecking and crowing – hence, more murderous thoughts.

The upshot though, of having Waffle chase crows of a morning, is that he thinks he should now be chasing crows all the time, if he sees a black flapper at any hour of the day. It’s as if he too has let murderous thoughts fester in his mind after being awakened by pecking and crowing. Thus, whenever Waffle sees a crow, he takes off like a hairy rocket, barking at the sky and the diminishing dark silhouette. So far, Waffle has steadfastly refused to learn how to fly and yet he is unfailingly enthusiastic and supremely motivated. The problem is: He is also useless – at least as a crow hunter.

“If only you could fly, Waff,” I tell him. “You could give them a run for their money, I’d bet.”

Until then, though, we might have to resort to something more… supernatural.

Is it possible to put the voodoo on crows?

Answers on a fiver please, to Waffle J Devlin, Back Hall, Drumquin…