Day 356: Last day of the Fair (a hot one, hence the peppers), and although I interacted with hundreds of people in the last two weeks, one contact shines above all the others. We have three hand puppets in the booth: a bear, an enormous mosquito and a raven. It goes without saying that the raven is my favourite, and in the slower times, I often used it in conjunction with my best imitation of a crow to draw people over to the booth. In the manner of a ventriloquist, I barely open my mouth, and when people first look around and see a bird sitting on my hand, they may mistake it for a real one. Such was the case with a little girl who couldn't have been more than two.
As her family approached the table, I knelt down to be at her level, cawing occasionally. When her mother asked her what she thought that was, with wide eyes, she replied, "Bird!" At four feet away, she stopped, clearly not sure if the raven was safe to approach. Mom offered encouragement, as did I, but the daughter wanted Raven to hop off my hand and onto the ground. When he was reluctant to perform at her command, she thought it might be all right if he sat on her shoulder instead. I had her turn around to face her mother, but Raven didn't jump onto her shoulder, oh no! He stepped onto the top of her head. She was a bit startled at the contact and flinched, which of course gave me the opportunity to have Raven come back to sit in my palm.
I spent close to ten minutes with her, Mom snapping pictures with her phone camera, and finally, the little girl got brave enough to touch Raven on his wing. I am convinced that she believed he was a real bird, and I bet she never forgets the encounter with her first corvid!
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