The season has tipped into the slow time for birding. On our walk around Green Lake this morning, we managed a paltry 13 species, and that had to include some “junk” birds like Rock Dove and Starling. We couldn't even raise a Robin or a Red-winged Blackbird or a Pied-billed Grebe. Everyone is busy molting (the ducks are shedding their spring finery for drab eclipse plumage) or hiding from the heat. The Tweeters birding listserv is thinner than usual—the birdwatchers have been driven from the scorched earth of Eastern Washington, and the fall shorebird migration is just beginning and nothing rare has shown up yet.
Yesterday morning we were breakfasting in the patio and heard the crows screeching even more vociferously than usual, and nearby. I investigated, and saw them dive bombing the neighbor's tomcat, as it released the young crow it had in its jaws. The crow hopped away, with one wing dragging, hobbled across the street, and, after several tries, made it up and over the curb.
Throughout the day the parents were unrelenting in their defense of the crippled offspring. The crow made it back into our yard, making it off-limits for us. I had no inclination to tend to this bird, as I am not sentimental when it comes to wild critters in general, and have a respectful antipathy towards crows in particular, as they exist in numbers far larger than they would without our intervention in the natural landscape, and they take a great toll on other native birdlife. The best I could have done for this wounded crow would have been to capture it, wring its neck, and put it out of its misery. But that would have risked being identified as the enemy of these crows, and I would have no peace ever again. Some time ago, my neighbor was thusly rewarded for freeing a baby crow from having gotten its head stuck in an Adirondack chair, and got dive bombed for years afterwards anytime he left the house. Just him. Corvids are profoundly intelligent, can identify us by individual, and have long memories.
The mortality rate of fledgling birds is about 90% or more. Nature is not in the least sentimental—that is strictly a human construct. This morning the neighborhood is quiet. There are no crows calling. A raccoon probably dispatched the youngster overnight, which is how I expected this to end, and how it should have. Cat, crow, raccoon, human. Predator, prey, scavenger, witness. These were the actors in this minor event in the urban ecosystem.
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