I meant to write a long post about the crows lately, but I could never finish it.
It was supposed to focus on Mr. Crow’s health, and it ended up not happening because of my own health.
So in short:
My health first. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. It’s just that – as you may already know or not – I have a herniated-disc-induced sciatica and it can hurt a lot when I sit. So I’ve been spending as little time sitting as possible, usually only for work and such. I even bought a standing desk at home, but I’m not used to writing long texts standing yet. Hence the lack of texts lately.
Mr. Crow’s health. I don’t know how old he is, but he’s not that young. Usually in the Fall, all the feathers that crows have lost in the previous months get replaced, and the birds look all nice and smooth with their brand-new warm feathers at the beginning of Winter. Well, Mr. Crow has been looking quite scruffy. And worse, about a month and a half ago he got injured, lost some big feathers on a wing, and he clearly looked weak.
I was really worried about him but after a couple of weeks, he got better.
And the same happened again last week. He doesn’t seem as weak, but he lost several big feathers and he’s very reluctant to come to the ground. The reason is simple: it’s very difficult to reach some altitude quickly because of that.
I wondered for a while what caused that. I’m still not sure, but:
A little while ago, I saw two crows landing in the park (Mr. and Ms. Crow’s territory) before being quickly chased by the righteous owners. However, yesterday, while I was outside with the crows (Mr. Crow was not on the ground) they – or two other crows – came back and a fight ensued. The intruders got chased quickly, but I can imagine Mr. Crow having been injured this way. And it’s quite worrisome overall if some younger crows are trying to take over the park.
Also today, another skirmish, but this time with eagles (black kites.) I didn’t see what caused it, but the crows and one or two eagles started fighting, and then more eagles got involved. I was really scared. While a crow can fight an eagle easily despite the difference in size if they were smarter, the eagles could gang up on the crows, and I’m not sure what the latter could do then. However, it seems that the eagles mostly fought against each other as Mr. and Ms. Crow quickly disengaged.
So yes, life is dangerous at the moment, especially for Mr. Crow. And every time I see him these days, I worry it could be the last time.
Today, I did spend quite some time with him, and I even brought this video back:
I hope you liked it.
Ms. and Mr. Crow after the fight with the eagles. They seem fine:
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