My mechanical clock says five-thirty-seven as I raise the blind on this light summer morning, Across the street a gull asserts its weight over a magpie and three jackdaws, all of them foraging fruitlessly for their breakfast on a damp patch of pavement next to an overflowing bin. Chased by the gull, mister magpie complies and moves on, as magpies tend to do, while the playful jackdaws seem game for a spot of teasing - for they are used to dealing with bullies. But eventually the third jackdaw gives up and struts away in search of more fertile ground. From behind my open window I ponder which of these different personalities I most identify with (probably that last jackdaw, or maybe the magpie). While I drift through such thoughts a car hisses by and elsewhere gulls cry out in unison like a gaggle of distressed children. Eventually the kettle comes to boil, snapping me back into focus. Black coffee, oatcakes and thick-cut orange marmalade. It's going to be a fine day today here on Scotland's west coast.
Genesis 1:20-21 (KJV)
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.