There are a pair of flapping crows hanging out in our front yard these days. I don’t know what the attraction is. They seem to have a thing for the hubcaps of my car parked in the driveway. I’ve checked the tires a few times for remnants of road kill but didn’t notice any – I’m usually pretty good at swerving around nasty business on the road. They spend considerable time pecking at the chrome – perhaps giving crow kisses to their reflections.
I’m not a big fan of crows – they are sinister black feathered fiends in my books. Even their voices are annoying, it’s like they have a private joke and I’m the brunt of it. Crows are the guys who root for the car when a squirrel dashes across the street. They sit on the wires and place their bets then caw their encouragement. We are definitely on opposing teams.
My youngest sister rescued an injured crow way back in the day – she has been a bird fancier all her life. She named the black feathered fiend Charley. She and mom fed him canned dog food for weeks as he convalesced in a box on the sundeck. Charley got stronger by the day and developed a real fondness for his care givers, and the dog food. I had already developed my low opinion of crows and took little interest in the cawing patient. I knew in my heart that once Charley was healthy enough to carry on his crowing way he and I would be at odds out in the world.
Charley flew the coop at his first opportunity with nary a cawed thank you. He would visit once in a while at supper time. He’d sit on the sundeck railing, cawing at the kitchen window. Mom or my sister always answered the call. They would pilfer a scoop of dog supper and set the spoon on the railing. Charley would wait, his beady eyes sparkling with anticipation – he knew a mark when he saw one. He always took the offering, spoon and all, and ate it in a tree by the road. My dad collected the discarded spoons when he cut the grass beneath the tree.
I have no clue what became of Charley or when his visits to the kitchen window stopped. I have no doubt he found some crow friends and went on his merry, scavenging way in the fashion of the hoards of black feathered fiends. For all I know these two annoying tire peckers in my front yard are Charley’s great, great grand-crows come here to haunt me for my indifference.
It should be noted that although I am not a fan of crows I do not wish them harm. They actually do us a service cleaning up the smears on the road. I’m not sure if the two fiends visiting my hubcaps are priming the tires for something sinister or just showing their reflections a little love – whichever, I wish they’d get on with their adventures and flap off – I’m tired of feeling like a punchline.