Caws and effect*
Long ago we owned a crow... or at least one lived with us. Blackie was a beautiful and fun creature, charming and mischievous, and he was ruler of the air over our plat. He was loved by some of our neighbors for his antics and hated by others for his trickster heart. I was devastated when we moved from New York to Rhode Island because the crow couldn't be found that day, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
It was in Schenectady, NY, in the Spring in 1962, when I found Blackie in the woods hopping about and unable to fly due to an injured wing. I brought him home and my dad built a large cage for him to keep him quiet while his wound healed. Somehow he got well and we bonded and after we opened his cage to let him fly he decided to hang around with us. He'd tour the neighbors' yards for food and for fun things to do, and had an evil reputation among many of the housewives due to his penchant for landing on clotheslines and pulling off the pins to drop the clothes on the ground. He'd also terrorize smaller pets with cawing and flapping, but for no more than reaction, never for meanness.
I'd play with him in the yard where he'd hop about and talk to me and peck at my head if I offered it to him. I could always count on his being around somewhere, in the trees or on power lines or by his old cage during the day, or visiting a special non-family friend up the road for an evening relaxer. Seems Blackie alighted on the man's backyard table one late afternoon and brazenly plucked the olive out of his martini while the man looked on amused. Every night after that our neighbor put out a drink just for the crow, and every night he returned to have his olive and a bit of conversation with this gentleman.
But it wasn't meant to be, my keeping this magnificent bird. My dad got transferred to Rhode Island with General Electric, and on a windy and overcast grey autumn morning we called and looked in vain for my friend before leaving Schenectady and Blackie forever. The bird couldn't be found and I remember my parents mumbling about maybe someone had taken him away and let him loose in the farmlands to keep him away from their home (this had happened once before). I believe it was my parents that took Blackie away because they knew he'd not adjust to being uprooted and brought to a strange new place to live. In any event, I never saw him again after that cheerless October morning.
I came across pictures of him the other day, the same day I found some Christmas photos from 1958. The pictures are of me playing with him with a stick, of all things, and one of him sitting pretty on the edge of the bird bath.
*I stole the subject line from an episode of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh)
It was in Schenectady, NY, in the Spring in 1962, when I found Blackie in the woods hopping about and unable to fly due to an injured wing. I brought him home and my dad built a large cage for him to keep him quiet while his wound healed. Somehow he got well and we bonded and after we opened his cage to let him fly he decided to hang around with us. He'd tour the neighbors' yards for food and for fun things to do, and had an evil reputation among many of the housewives due to his penchant for landing on clotheslines and pulling off the pins to drop the clothes on the ground. He'd also terrorize smaller pets with cawing and flapping, but for no more than reaction, never for meanness.
I'd play with him in the yard where he'd hop about and talk to me and peck at my head if I offered it to him. I could always count on his being around somewhere, in the trees or on power lines or by his old cage during the day, or visiting a special non-family friend up the road for an evening relaxer. Seems Blackie alighted on the man's backyard table one late afternoon and brazenly plucked the olive out of his martini while the man looked on amused. Every night after that our neighbor put out a drink just for the crow, and every night he returned to have his olive and a bit of conversation with this gentleman.
But it wasn't meant to be, my keeping this magnificent bird. My dad got transferred to Rhode Island with General Electric, and on a windy and overcast grey autumn morning we called and looked in vain for my friend before leaving Schenectady and Blackie forever. The bird couldn't be found and I remember my parents mumbling about maybe someone had taken him away and let him loose in the farmlands to keep him away from their home (this had happened once before). I believe it was my parents that took Blackie away because they knew he'd not adjust to being uprooted and brought to a strange new place to live. In any event, I never saw him again after that cheerless October morning.
I came across pictures of him the other day, the same day I found some Christmas photos from 1958. The pictures are of me playing with him with a stick, of all things, and one of him sitting pretty on the edge of the bird bath.
*I stole the subject line from an episode of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh)