New Crow in Town

This is #notMortimer

I feed crows. When we left the farm seven years ago I missed all the birds and wildlife that inhabited our property. The first year in town we built a new garage and the birds wisely avoided the area. But after that we had a variety of birds. Blue jays, wrens, humming birds, chickadees, and crows. 

One day as we ate outside a crow looked particularly hopeful, so I flipped him a piece of bread. He came back again and again. I set a dish out on the deck especially for him. 

Eventually he would sit on the garage roof and lean forwards, peering hopefully in through the kitchen window as I made coffee. A bit of leftover sausage, a piece of toast, a bite of meat left from last nights supper if you please? I took to saving bits for him. And he in turn sometimes ate in the yard while I spoke with him.

One lovely summer day I set up a pedicure for myself out on the deck. Feet in the warm water, book in hand, I was lost in the story when I heard a peculiar noise. Looking up, there was Crow sitting on the peak of the roof, trying hard to make eye contact. He had his beak tucked  as close under his chin as it would go, and, feathers bristling on the back of his neck, made a purring, pleading kind of noise. "Murr? Murr?" He was begging. Politely. No raucous cawing for him.

After that he would call that way, and I would try hard to find a morsel for him.  When his children fledged out he brought them, too.

For several years he came back, but, alas, last summer he didn't return. Just a smaller bird that I assume is his son. Sadly, Sonny Crow was not the gentleman his father was. He was prone to the snatch and fly form of dining and I feel that kitchen love, not amiable companionship is all I got from the relationship. But a bird is a bird.

 Eventually he  became a good friend, too. I named him Mortimer. He would come regularly, and he was very adept at packing his great beak with much food. I would cut left over sausage into little round pieces, and he would stack them up carefully and take away as many as possible in one trip. A spaghetti strand would be gathered into little loops so as, I assume, not to dangle and break in transit. He would pick through a dish of leftover sweet and sour, stack the little pieces of pork and fling the pineapple over his shoulder onto the deck or the lawn. No fruit in his diet!

And then Mortimer was gone. 

My daughter thinks maybe a heart attack from all the rich leftovers. But not everyone appreciates crows the way I do and I fear he came to a bad end.

Now the crow in the picture has been visiting, and the word please is not in his vocabulary. This one definitely is raucous. But hungry. Touches my heart. If he keeps coming back and becomes a regular at my railing I may name him Alfredo.
We will see where life takes us in this direction.