Fowl play by ducks

I loved the story that I heard today about ducks. This comes after a working day during which I had a lot of bird related problems and difficulties. The tale of fowl play comes from the 1950's when a particular cabaret act touring the clubs and entertainment venues consisted of very tame ducks performing a series of stunts and sequences. They would waddle around and jump over obstacles, career down slides and shutes, play football and, by being just ducks doing such things, thrill the assembled audiences. The grand finale was apparently amazing to behold. The ducks would be placed on a tin lidded box and proceed to carry out quite a complex but obvious dance routine, hopping about and making hilarious movements. At one top venue the main  part of the act went very, very well. The wined and dined clientele expressed great delight at the act. Those at the tables who were familiar with the Stage Empresario and his ducks could be seen hinting to their fellow diners of the magnitude of the final act. However, with the ducks placed ceremoniously on the tin lid they point blank declined to do anything and just stood around or huddled together with no reaction to the clamour of the crowd. The whole performance fell flat on its face.There was talk of refunds and that the ducks would never work in the theatres or clubs again. The shattered showman was later asked in his dressing room what had gone wrong. He replied that it was all his fault as he had forgotten to light the candle in the box before putting on the tin lid. My own troublesome birds were at a property just outside Beverley. The house was a bit of a wreck, not humanly habitable but nevertheless dry and free from draughts. The ideal place therefore to use as a nursery for young game birds. What had been the lounge and kitchen were filled with small rearing pens for all manner of breeds. Even as a townie I recognised Guinea Fowl, Partridge and Pheasant. Approaching Christmas and with a ready market demand for an alternative dinner bird to a turkey these were being brought on and fattened up for the table. The smell in the ground floor of the house was quite unbearable and I had to break open some of the grubby paned windows just to get some sort of a through ventilation. There was the sound of mass panic from the main wood and wire mesh pens as I entered the room. Thinking that I might reassure the birds that I meant no harm I approached and peered into the compartments. Upon first actual sight of the looming source of the initial startling noise the birds went berserk. The air in the room filled with the dust from whatever formed the floor surface of the pens mixed with a lot of fine feathers. The only calm group of birds sat in an open top cardboard box under a heat lamp. I have no idea what breed they were. The six of them were a greasy black colour with no distinguishing markings. They could have been albatross,cormorant or shag for all I knew. They were quite inquisitive. Five of the occupants of the box seemed to cajole and physically heave the lone other bird onto the metal feeder so that it stood at head and bird shoulders height in relation to the others. The feeder had a dome shaped upper part with a shallow mucky water filled surround. The oval top was quite difficult for the delegated representative of the birds to balance on. Then it surprised me by leaping from the feeder onto the lip of the cardboard box. It wobbled a bit but regained its composure quickly. I tried to poke it back into the box with my clipboard. A flapping bird was, I found, very distressing and unsettling in a confined space. Rather than fall back to be chastised by it's possible siblings the bird jumped the other way onto the floor and scuttled into a corner formed by the pillar between the lounge and kitchen. I did not want to get into a pointless bird chase situation, nor did I want to actually come into contact with the thing being mindful of the whole bird flu epidemic in more recent times. I was also on a bit of a schedule so left the bird where it was hoping a mutual fear would keep it in its current location. Periodically I checked on the status of the scruffy bird. It stayed more or less in the same spot but was looking around obviously assessing its options. At one point all I could see of the bird was its backside and tail feathers. For some reason it had sought a feeling of security. To the bird this involved climbing beaklong into a brick sized hole in the wall just above the skirting board. Perhaps it felt invisible simply because it could not see me. It must have been boring because the next time I checked on the situation the bird had hopped up onto the edge of another but vacated rearing box about a metre away from its starting point. That was enough for me. With my toe end I negotiated the perching box towards the rearing box. The bird threatened to jump ship but as the two boxes came together I flipped up the edge lid and the sole bird was reunited. As if to welcome back the escapee the 5 encumbents immediately surrounded and cosseted the bird in quite a defensive and touching way. I had finished in the house. That just left a perambulation around the 8 acre grounds. The owner of the whole property was obviously hoping to cash in on the festive season. At the back of the house was a line of a dozen rather bare and sorry looking fir trees. These looked as though they had been salvaged, root ball intact, from a skip or the local Civic Amenity Site prior to being shredded and mulched for the benefit of the Parks Department flower borders. The main cash flow item was however the paddock of free range turkeys. The flock or whatever collective noun applied insisted on following me around the field. I must say that whoever associated such an ugly creature with a tasty meat must have been the most enlightened person ever. I suppose originating in the wild some poor soul may have had to resort to capturing and eating one of the diabolic looking creatures only for survival purposes. What a very pleasant experience and subsequent commercial venture that will have been. Their faces were an undefined mess of blue and red folded skin. With only a little more imagination and CGi effects they could easily have become another arch nemesis for Dr Who. The genes of a turkey do make them very conscious of their importance to the enjoyment of Christmas lunches the world over and they seemed undeniably proud of this in their demeanour and attitude. It was still sad to think that, as I completed my work, they would not see the light of Boxing Day.