Busy day, today; I’m afraid it’ll have to be a bird-and-run.
Stop eating my one surviving plant, you greedy gull.
Not as exciting as a baby crow, but this little bird looks awfully soft and squeezable. (Though, one probably shouldn’t squeeze it.)
No, Mother, I didn’t forget you. Here, look, I was outside:
I found these outside. Next time, I’ll take a proper camera, and get proper pictures.
My unfortunate crow was back, today — back several times, in fact. He can’t get enough of the suet. I notice he’s landing better, now, and hopping about on both feet. Perhaps his leg was only sprained. I doubt it would be mending this fast, had it been broken. Of course, it still looks quite sore and tender; he’s keeping his weight off it, where possible, and spending as much time as he can sitting down. Not that I imagine he’s had an awful lot of time for sitting about, lately, given the surprise he presented me with, this morning:
Aww. It’s a baby crow. Isn’t it precious? Isn’t it, fuck. Stop squawking, ya wee blighter!
That poor, poor crow! Bad enough, he’s gone and hurt himself — I had no idea he had one of these, into the bargain. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t manage to catch him, when his condition was still dire. His little one seems to have quite an appetite, and no idea how to eat by itself. Nice time to become a father! (I’ve been assuming it’s a father, at any rate. It’s quite large, as crows go, which pegs it for male. But it might just as well be a mother. A very fat mother. I suppose I’ll never know.)
Still, a baby crow! I’ve been dying to see one of those, for ages! I’m pleased to report it really has got blue eyes, as advertised. You can’t see them so well, in these pictures — it was early, and the light was feeble — but from certain angles, with a bit of sun reflected in them, they were really quite startling. Also quite startling was the sheer volume of this thing. It didn’t stop cawing, the entire time it was here (about half an hour, all told). It cawed at me. It cawed at the sparrows that tried to share the feeder. It cawed at its father. It even cawed at a butterfly. It must’ve been awfully hungry. It never closed its beak!
Caw!
A dreadful display of elder abuse, among birds.
The adult crow looks terribly browbeaten, here. (In fact, he is cleaning his beak.)
Bawk!
BAWK!
BRAWWWWWWWK!
And here’s the young chap on the feeder, STILL SHRIEKING! All that food’s right there, in his face, but he doesn’t so much as dip his beak.
The elder crow lands on the roof. Hope he wasn’t looking for a moment’s peace…
…because then, this happened.
And this!
He’s insatiable!
Rather a nice little bird encounter — for me, at any rate. Mr. Crow might’ve thought otherwise. Poor fellow! It’s not his lucky summer. I’ll have to put out extra suet; he’s going to need all the energy he can get, from the looks of things.
Oh, and these are some boats. They are outside. So was I.
Boats.
