With the air traffic problem caused by volcanic ash, it’s remarkable how quiet it is outside. What can mainly be heard are the birds. There’s a family of robins somewhere, I can hear them squeaking at each other; a robin’s call has been likened to a piece of polystyrene being dragged down a window and that’s just how they sound. One year a family put a nest in the decorative urn by our front door and dive bombed us each time we went out. One of the nestlings died, early on, and hung, decomposing, while the parents flew in and out, feeding the others. Received wisdom is that birds cannot count but you would think they would have noticed poor dead junior, at least enough to remove him.
One of the most noticeable bird sounds round here is the crow tapping at the window. Our crow is so bright he can probably count, add and subtract. His parents lived in the willow tree on the green and dived, screeching, at all pedestrians as the family grew. A novice flyboy flew into our sun room window and lay, upside down, staring at the sky, all day. I went out and put a bowl of water down. He stared at me with his bright blue eyes. I’m no bird handler; I’m more comfortable with cats. His beak looked sharp and if he had broken something I had no way to take him to the vet to get mended. Nothing was dangling, he appeared to be compos mentis, just lying on his back, staring. I moved around; his eyes followed me. So I left him there and observed. Eventually, late in the afternoon, his mother found him and poked him and talked to him until he got up. I hadn’t realised he was a teenager. They flew away but having reached maturity he returned to the huge tree at the bottom of next door’s garden, with a wife.
They both taught the babies to catch dinner by taking them onto nearby roofs with pebbles. The adults sat on the roof ridge and let the pebbles roll down and the babies had to run after and catch them. They began with the shallow pitched roofs of the semi detached houses and worked up to steeper roofs. When they succeeded, the adults talked to the babies very gently. You wouldn’t think ‘caw’ can sound loving but it can. I learned to distinguish different inflexions, which is how I realised they were pleased when I cleaned the bird bath out and refilled it. One afternoon as I returned and got out of the car, they greeted me with great alarm, dived at me and generally panicked. I went into the back garden, the neighbours were having a barbeque with the metal stove, full of smoke and burning embers, facing the tree. The crows wanted me to tell the neighbours but I could see the barbeque was nearly over. The neighbours, who have grandchildren, put a lid on the stove and the crows settled down but the following year nested in a different tree.
I made a mistake too, I once fed the crows with warmed meat scrapings on the bird table in a cold spell. The next morning they tapped on my bedroom window, asking for more, unfortunately crow breakfast time is five o’ clock. It took an entire season before they stopped knocking. They used to find which room I was in by looking through the window and tap there, I can fool them by keeping the bedroom curtains closed, but not for long. They still tap if I’ve forgotten to put out clean water.
Last year they had no brood and the gentleman crow felt the strain. He began to lose feathers. By midsummer he had a bare back and tail and started having to run along the lawn to get up into the air. His wife was worrying about him, she started going everywhere with him, using the chivvying tone of caw she uses on babies who are being a bit slow. This year I’m not hearing from them so much; I think there may be eggs.
The crow plays with me. He will move things round the garden. I had a tray of potted up seedlings on the patio table last week, one morning when came out to water them he’d piled the pots up in towers. If I drop clothes pegs on the ground and forget to pick them up he will fly them up to the garage roof, there’s a little collection there now. Many neighbours have been given a gift of my pots, courtesy of the crows. I had an old solar fountain in a bowl outside, which had stopped working, both crows pecked at it so hard to make it work like the other one, they’ve broken the glass on the solar panel. If I leave the plastic trowel on the patio he will pick it up and put it one of the big ceramic pots.
If birds are the eventual outcome of dinosaurs, it’s amazing that we, the descendants of little furry animals, out-evolved them. My crow can anticipate, has a sense of humour, has empathy and a language. If he had a thumb, I’d be the one hiding the clothes pegs and he’d be the one enjoying the quiet skies without the planes, though, come to think of it, he probably is.