Book-Book remains at large

So, at the beginning of February 2011, Ian repurposed a loop of aluminium with handle (a P.G. Harding-designed whitebait scoop-net), quite a number of clothes pegs, and my strawberry protection netting, and made a trap to catch Book-Book.

First, he caught George.

Then he rigged it so that a piece of string extending to the kitchen window hook was all that stood between Book-Book and captivity.

Witness the little bowl of tempting grain.
Witness the cage that would transport her to Dunsandel.

You will simply have to take my word for the scissors that remained on the kitchen window-sill for 4 weeks, waiting for the opportunity to CHOP the string and capture the hole-digging, tomato-stripping, lettuce-thieving wee beastie.

Day after day I arose early, confident of capturing her. She took to roosting in the bush yonder (above and to the left of the clothes-line) and several times I was up before her. Chickens do apparently lie in.

On the very hot day of which I have written previously, she was in the target zone at 6.30 am while I, in my dressing-gown, was in the kitchen making hot drinks. Fearful of fatally loosening the one "dressing-gown cord that ruled it all" in full view of the neighbours, I instead whisked through with great speed and care to the bedroom to summon my collaborator, but by the time he was sufficiently awake to grasp the urgency and jump into clothes, Book-Book had pecked her way out of the target zone.

That was sadly our last chance for weeks. Whether she recognised the great danger, or whether the grain became less tempting, or whether I just wasn't in the right place at the right time, I cannot say.

All I do know is that by the time she was next seen in the target zone, the Earthquake had happened, the window was shut, and when I frantically cut the string it jammed in the window frame long enough for her to jump sideways out of danger.

I have seen her since but our relationship is, if possible, more fraught than before; I fear that she will not allow herself ever to be lovingly ensnared - let alone understand how much we admire her - pluck.