Friday 17 July
When I was a child, I guess I must have been around 9 or 10, I owned a rabbits foot. I also had a tail. I got them through trading with friends, a rubiks cube was the price. I also acquired a small pen knife that I had also traded, for a football.
I kept these items secret from my parents because I knew they wouldn’t like me having them and also that I had traded other things for them.
Having a rabbits foot and tail felt secretive and naughty. I didn’t have the respect for the natural world then as I do now. We all knew they brought good luck and for that reason they also brought an aura of magic. I remember wondering what wizard or sorcerer removed the foot and tail. It wasn’t exactly ouija boards or tarot cards but it was our version of it; dabbling in the junior dark arts.
This year, with all of the walking during lockdown, I’ve collected a few feathers. I’m going to stick them in a book and date them. Why not? I might even do a drawing or two. The maths of nature always makes me tip a wink to creationist theory every so often (it obviously doesn’t stick). But each barb is coming off the main calamus (the central staff) at an almost dead-on 45° angle. The barbules cross each other at bang-on 90°. Why?
Owning feathers as a grown up takes me back to those days and those feelings. They’re nature’s little trinkets and mean as much to me now as they did back then. But the rabbits foot was in a totally different league.
The Bald Birder 