I’m a rook, like, and I mainly hang around Rory Gallagher Square in Cork. I pecks away around the square, getting the odd bits and pieces that people drop on the ground. I’m what you call a polyglot. That means I speak a lot of languages. I mean a lot of languages. It comes easy to birds, us rooks especially.
The first thing Dermot and I noticed was the early evening drifting of seabirds, as the winter sun set over Ringaskiddy behind us. They looked like black-headed gulls but we couldn’t see, from the distance. What was most striking was the silence, as they flew in Vs of eight or ten or twelve. Seaward, over the narrow channel of water at East Ferry. They flew effortlessly, in precise lines, rotating to take the point of the V. Purposefully; a low white script against the background browns and blacks of the water and the far shore.
I’m devilishly handsome. I like that word ‘devilishly’. It suits me. We corvids (crows, if you wish) don’t believe in gods or devils, obviously. Though we do have a healthy respect for what you humans call ‘nature’. You used to have that respect, too, once. But you’ve forgotten most of what you ever knew. You can call me Raxia Bluefeather. It’s not my name, but it’ll do. As has been explained before, the names of rooks is very important to us and far too complex for your minds. Not too complex, perhaps – that’s not fair. But it would be alien to you. Incomprehensible. I’ll leave it there.
