Monday 17 August 2015

'Baby Crow!'



Ah, my granddaughter. Little Sardine. Just two years old. Yesterday, as her regular Sunday visit drew to a close, the time came to feed the crows.

She came with me out into the garden, and wanted a go with the crow call. She blew it just as I showed her (though rather more frequently than one normally might), and sure enough within a minute or two, she’d gathered the entire crow family – both parents and all the children – in the tall ash trees and on the chimney pots.

She loves crows. She loves the seagulls too – or, as she calls them, eagles.

The seagulls, who have raised two chicks this year, and are worn threadbare by the prodigious appetites (and endless mewling) of their gigantic beige babies, are always extremely jealous when the crows are fed. They will resort to all manners of wily ruses and elaborate teamwork to get the food for themselves. And it’s unwise to turn your back for even a nano-second. Sharing is fine, but that is not part of a herring gull’s vocabulary.

So I put some bread out on the woodstore roof to keep the ‘eagles’ happy, and Little Sardine wanted to be lifted ‘Up! Up!’ to watch them eat it. She had less success with the crows. Her mother and I both explained painstakingly that the essence of the thing is, you have to be quiet. And tolerably still. Well, she grasped that idea. So in between playing Hide and Seek Dinosaurs with her brother amid the lines of laundry hanging out to dry – which involved emerging periodically at rocket-launch speed emitting an earsplitting roaring shriek, she would drop into stealth mode, eyes wide, face listening in silent amaze, hoarsely whispering ‘Baby Crow!’ But she never did see it, I can’t think why.






(Photos are her mother’s, Buzzfloyd’s, in their yard at home)


6 comments:

Elizabeth @ The Garden Window said...

Bless her heart <3

Pen Wilcock said...

:0) xx

Rapunzel said...

Playing amongst the fresh scented hanging clothes....one more reason to use the sun instead of a clothes dryer.

Pen Wilcock said...

Yes! In England most of us have what we call 'whirligig' clothes lines ~ I find these are not well known in America, so I'll put a link to show you what I mean. One of the great things about them is on a hot day you can lay a sheet over them to make a sunshade, and you can drape and peg towels on them to make a play house. They're a bit ugly, but when not in use you can fold them up and lift them out of the ground to lay aside for later use - the central pole sits in a buried socket.
http://www.wilko.com/content/ebiz/wilkinsonplus/invt/bh00002/bh00002_l.jpg

Rapunzel said...

Oh yes,I don't think they're called whirligig clothes lines here but I put one of these in my yard when I was living back in my old hometown for a couple of years of college there. It's quite handy to be able to plop the basket of wet things down and stand in one spot to do all the hanging.

At the house I'm moving to the clotheslines are all strung between trees from one end of the long property to the other. This would require a fat lot of walking up and down in a nearly wild part of the garden that I would prefer to get a bit more wild. I don't mind the walking at all, I love to hang out clothes but the lines are in the way of other ''people''s homes. There are bunnies and squirrels and several bird families there, and chipmunks under foot as well. I'd rather leave that bit of woodsiness to them and relocate the clotheslines closer to the human house one way or another. This might be the best solution. Thanks for reminding me!

Pen Wilcock said...

I hope you will be bloging about your house move, and the new house - with lots and lots of pictures! Hope it goes well. Blessings on you move. Blessings on your new home. xx