Two Birds and a Crow

 

It was the strangest thing.  I was on a walk with Anya and our dog yesterday when I heard a kind of aggressive grunt-bark coming from somewhere above our heads in the trees.  Anya just kept talking away but I was swiveling my head all about trying to find the source of the disconcerting sound.  

My eye finally caught some movement at the top of a large tree where it appeared some birds were darting in and out of the leaves.  And then I saw the crow.  It was at least twice the size of the two smaller birds and sitting on a branch.  The two birds kept diving at the crow and then swerving away to circle back and then repeat the process.  I was captivated and suddenly remembered something that had happened at our old house.  

Every year robins would make a nest under the eaves of our gazebo to lay their blue eggs.  We’d sneak out at times to see the mother sitting there but if we were too loud or too close she would swoop down to the railing and make loud chirps until we retreated (see photo).  When they hatched I would lift Anya up to see their little beaks just over the rim of the nest and if we made a noise they would think the mother was back and start loudly chirping for food.  

One particular year after the eggs were laid we came home to find pieces of those beautiful eggs littered in the gutter.  Elias and I tried unsuccessfully to hide them before little Anya could see it but curiosity got the best of her.  She was quite upset and thought the squirrel was the culprit.  We somehow figured out that a crow had destroyed and devoured those eggs.

It made sense, then, what I was seeing.  It was highly likely that the crow had discovered the birds’ nest and they were desperately trying to force it to leave the eggs alone.  The crow was standing its ground letting out these strange guttural noises and I thought of that line from a Tennyson poem which speaks of Nature as “red in tooth and claw”.  

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