Two years ago a crow came to our feeder
In December
Announcing himself
As if the absentee landlord
Had suddenly appeared
For the back rent.
He strode around under the feeder
Gorging on black oil sunflower seeds.
From then on
He was a regular.
Sometimes he would bring a friend.
Maybe a girlfriend.
Try these, I imagine he would say,
You might like them.
The friend would always
Turn up his or her bill
And fly off.
I imagined that he was different
From the others.
I imagined that he was older
Maybe smarter.
Maybe his interest in sunflowers
Was just the tip of the iceberg.
Sometimes he stayed on the branch
Loudly broadcasting his arrival
As if my attention was the main attraction.
I admit that I encouraged him.
His voice was strident, demanding.
Indeed, sometimes I felt manipulated,
Almost ashamed of my overeagerness
To make friends
With such a demanding character.
He took full advantage of my passivity.
Jumping to the second winter now,
In spite of his shortcomings,
I was initially overjoyed
By his reappearance.
I knew he felt he controlled me,
Even though we both knew
Who had the bigger brain,
He reminded me of Aladdin.
I was the genie of the lamp.
In fact that might have been
Why he brought his girlfriends
To the feeder,
To show off how he could conjure me.
Just watch now.
Be patient, I imagine him boasting.
I'm going to make the human appear.
And I would, with extra seeds
For his majesty.
In the spring of the second winter,
After the last snow
When the world was greening
And all the husks of 4 / 40-pound bags
Were waiting to be raked
And carted off to become compost,
He returned,
As if to say,
This is not all about feeding me.
So, I would go out
And say hello.
But conversation was strained.
What do you want from me?
We aren't really friends,
And I am only willing to be your genie
In the winter.
I'm sorry.
I thought he would disappear
Until I started feeding the birds again.
But something happened.
There is a stone bowl
Way in the far back yard
Between two birdhouses
Where two pairs of bluebirds
Had just moved in.
One morning I saw my crow
Flying down to the stone bowl
But he wasn't just getting a drink.
It was hard to see what he was doing.
I waited a few minutes
For him to fly off
And went down to investigate.
In the bowl was a dead garter snake
Or what was left of one,
Stripped of its scales
From its head to the tip of its tail.
I have never seen a snake
Without its skin.
The water in the stone bowl
Was red with blood.
I do not consider myself squeamish
But honestly I felt a wave of revulsion
Rising from my gut.
I decided not to interfere
But to let my crow
Finish his meal
Which he did shortly.
Then I washed out the bowl
And refilled it with clean water.
The next day,
The water was fouled
By the remnants of a mouse.
I felt like some line had been crossed.
I removed the stone bowl
(Which was quite a bit heavier than
It was when I placed it there originally,
When I was 6 years younger)
To a more secluded spot.
The crow has not returned.
Is it odd that I felt disrespected?
Is it strange that I felt offended
By this bird?
Do I only have myself to blame
For trying to be accommodating
To a creature
Whose agenda
I could never, in reality,
Begin to fathom?
I only hope he doesn't
Devour the bluebirds
One by one as they
Try their fledgling wings.
And how will I feel about him
When he is back
Calling for sunflowers,
Summoning me from the house?
I don't know.
I'll keep you posted.
.........
I just want to say, this is all true and accurate. I tried to be honest about how I anthropomorphized this crow, and how I paid for that when he showed his true colors, or should I say, his true nature. What threw me off was, he did have a strong personality and there was something different about him that set him off from his peers. Maybe there is another possible explanation for his behavior, his showing up by the feeder throughout the winter. Maybe he was an outcast and was lonely. I was put off by his using the stone bowl for his personal killing or butchering bowl, but "killing" and "butchering" are our words. What he was doing, in his world, was smart and resourceful. I think what got to me was that by filleting the snake in the stone bowl he had effectively set himself at cross-purposes with my agenda. He had crossed a line. Nothing else he did offended me. Quite the contrary, I found him, albeit, begrudgingly, amusing, and felt that he and I might actually forge some kind of weird friendship eventually . . . and we still might, if he doesn't trespass over that line again. If I don't catch him harassing the bluebirds, but just showing up and hanging out occasionally and gorging on sunflowers in the winter, our relationship might yet have a future. We'll see.
(Article changed on May 19, 2022 at 12:47 PM EDT)
