Friends At Breakfast

Day 91: After being given a clean bill of health from my oral surgeon last Thursday, I decided it was time to have my Christmas dinner. I'd bought a nice little turkey in early December, but of course the tooth situation had put my high-flown plans on hold: no turkey, no Brussels sprouts, no cranberry-horseradish sauce despite the fact that I wasn't in any particular pain. So, Friday morning found the turkey still somewhat frozen, so a soak in the sink finished the thawing process and by a little after noon, I had it in the oven. Now it must be explained that my favourite part of the turkey is the soup I make from the carcase. I'm not quite to that point yet (it was a 12-pounder, after all), but part of the bargain is that I share the stuffing and giblets with my friends. This is even more important now that there's some snow on the ground. These two crows seem to be a couple. They stay close to one another, whether on the ground or sitting on the fence. They engage in allopreening and intimate beak contact, both typical of a newly-formed bond. Behaviour would indicate that the one in the foreground of this photo is the female, although it usually takes me a few minutes to sort out who's who when they first land.

Crows In The Corn

Day 9: It looks like a pair of thieves have found the corn the farmer's wife was gathering for her harvest display! These tiny cobs are beaded, and for a sense of size, I've included an inset showing them with a penny for scale. With any of the needle-arts, I tend to gravitate toward the "fine" (size) end of the spectrum, preferring to knit with #5 or smaller needles, to crochet with a #10 or smaller hook, to tat with the finest thread available, and in beadwork, I never use anything larger than a #11 seed bead. The corn was made with #13 beads, even smaller yet.

Each cob has eight horizontal rows worked in square stitch over a pigskin core which was cut at one end to form the husks. Two decreasing rows were added after the main cob was completed in order to make the tapered tip.

I have made a larger version of these using #8 beads which are about the same size as a kernel of  "Indian corn." I worked them over a felt-padded raffia core, with raffia for the husks. They look real enough to eat!

Crow Woman

Day 8: "Bad hair day," she thought when she first looked in the mirror on Monday morning, and then, "Boy, I need more sleep. I'm getting dark circles around my eyes." It hadn't been a particularly long weekend in the vernacular sense of parties and liquor; no, it was solely the mental clarity typical of myopic vision and expecting not to see the unexpected. It wasn't until she picked up her toothbrush that another realization took hold. "What the hell? I've got a BEAK? Wait a minute here...I don't recall Gregor Samsa being in the forecast."

It was an incomplete metamorphosis. The hand holding the toothbrush was pink and fingered. The elbow bent at a slightly odd angle, but it brought the arm up and allowed her to touch her hair. At least some things hadn't changed. Again she spoke a stream of invective, and this time, she paid attention to the sounds she was making: "Caaaaw! Caw-caw CAW-ca-caw!" Sibilants and fricatives had absented themselves from her tongue. Her second language came naturally, however. After all, she'd been using it for years to communicate with her corvid friends. She'd always claimed a kinship with them as well, citing similarities in their behaviours to her own. Perhaps it was the corvids' talent for situational assessment which kept her from panicking at this moment, and some of their curiosity as well.

If millet toast had tasted good to her as a full human, it tasted even better to the palate of a semi-crow. Coffee posed a problem, if only for the size of the cup compared to her bill. Breakfast accomplished, she then began thinking about how her co-workers would view this alteration in her appearance when she showed up at her job. She decided it probably wouldn't be an issue. No one pays a crow much attention unless they're raiding songbird nests, and as an ornithologist, she had always used the utmost care when measuring and weighing eggs, returning each one lovingly to its bed of down and weed-fluff.

Communication was going to be a poser, though. She had a class to give, and twenty students who had only got as far as the correct pronunciation of "Caw" as a signal of danger. "Turn to page twenty-six" was going to be difficult to get across. Demonstration! That was the key. It would also present a means to illustrate how serviceable a beak is for lifting and probing. Without consciously noting it, she was demonstrating another ability common to the Corvidae: intelligent analysis of a problem.

As the next few hours progressed, it became apparent to her that not much had changed except for her appearance. The traits common to corvids were none other than those of her human persona, traits which had stood her in good stead all her human life. A crow from birth, she'd simply fledged.

Crow Tree

Day 75: From their vantage point in the Crow Tree, the Breakfast Bunch can watch for activity at any of four locations where they might expect to find food spread for their enjoyment. Of the four, the most reliable spot is my "crow board" where daily handouts of dry dog food and table scraps are provided near dawn. As soon as they hear the door slide back or see me in the yard, the cawing commences, and before I'm back inside, they've gathered like a flurry of black snowflakes on the board, the fence and the ground. In between their scrabblings to gather beaksful of kibble, the Steller's Jays steal a few bites, but there's plenty to go around. No bird ever went hungry begging at my "table!"

A Cawlection Of Crows

Day 292: When someone asks me what I collect, my first thought always runs to my marble hoard. It fills a five-gallon glass jar and spills over into a second container, and the tally is approaching 5000. Next, I think of the ceramic "worms" (caterpillars) on display in a shadow-box, a grouping which started with a gift given me on my first birthday. I may even cast a cursory glance at the shelf of Lomonosov porcelain and bird figurines, the bells, the cats, or any of several other less populous collections, in all cases my eyes slipping right past one of the most prominent assemblages in my home. I won't say they appear in every room, but visitors are never out of line of sight with some item of the numerous crow and raven representations I possess. They ornament the hutch top of my desk, hang on the wall in the kitchen, stand watch over me while I sleep. They emerge from my jewelry box, as cards and stationery, or from my library shelves. Many of them have been gifts from friends who know my abiding interest in the fascinating corvid family. Others have followed me home from shoppes both near and far away.

I have been associated with crows (and to a lesser extent, ravens) for most of my life. I've studied them, made friends with them, learned a few words in their complex and elegant language. I feed them daily, converse with them when I am hiking, or sometimes in parking lots if one invites me to an exchange of civilities. I often greet friends on the street with a loud and realistic "Caw!" which, to my great amusement, sometimes causes others within hearing range to look to the sky. I seek out crows wherever I go, sometimes as trinkets, sometimes as temporary companions, so yes, I'd have to describe my "best collection" as one of crows.