SINGLE PHOTOGRAPHS CAN BE ENLARGED WITH A CLICK OR TWO. CLICKING ON ANY OF THOSE IN A GROUP ACCESSES ITS GALLERY, INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF WHICH CAN BE VIEWED FULL SIZE BY SCROLLING DOWN AND CHECKING BOX AT BOTTOM RIGHT.
Early this morning, while I was catching up with my WordPress reading, Jackie rushed in with the small camera, having photographed a young crow on the roof of the garden shed.
I abandoned my computer, grabbed the DSLR, and limped into the garden. Jackie had provided her new friend with a crust of bread lit by the dawn sun,
which it soon eschewed for something more to its taste.
She coaxed the bird down from the roof, and was delighted when it made her “feel like Long John Silver” from R. L. Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’.
Her face was then to register a whole gamut of emotions, from pleasure, pain, apprehension, courage, and a touch of agony.
When she could tolerate no more my Lady transferred the tormentor to her outstretched hand.
Jackie tells me that the pecking is what the young birds do to the parents in order to encourage feeding. She was amazing in her tolerance of the attentions of such a savage beak closing on her ear and tugging at her hair.
Young avians do not instinctively know they are birds. They are known to ‘imprint’ onto an early carer. Crows, in particular, are such creatures. Imprinting onto a human may promote a human identity. The corvine variety are able to recognise faces. I wonder which of Jackie’s will be in the memory bank.
Some time later, our new family member trotted indoors and wandered about. I perched it onto the end of my crutch and led it outside. It kept returning. The consequences were the need for a hunt for bird poo to clean up, and an eventual decision to keep the doors closed.
Jackie continued her mammoth garden watering sessions and her infant kept landing on her head and shoulders until, in desperate self-defence, she turned the spray on young Crow.
This evening we dined on Hordle Chinese Take Away fare. Drinks on the patio had included Jackie’s customary Hoegaarden and a miniature bottle of Argentinian Malbec for me. I had saved some to accompany the meal. Jackie hadn’t. I couldn’t resist checking on our little bird who was finishing his second slice of bread on the shed roof.
While Mrs. Knight was collecting our food we were hit by a power cut which continued until 10.30 p.m. This meant my post was late into the ether, but I consider myself lucky to have managed it at all.