A Rather Surprising Development

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:

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!

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.