Calendar Poodle SAL

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Crows

Hi friends! Still pretty cold and white here, what's new? ;)

I continue to stitch on my chocolate linen with pink flosses by day. I will give you a sneak peak of that piece soon. Getting close to a finish on my night time stitch, LK Spring String.

Do you like crows? I mostly like them. Our next door neighbor has been putting out bread for the birds for years. Just a small amount in the morning. Months ago, maybe even half a year ago, I noticed crows come and eat the bread. At first I thought, "Oh brother!" They are so noisy.

When I was 18, I worked at Hawthorn Glen, a small nature preserve in the city of Milwaukee. I took care of the animals in the nature museum. One of those animals was Bart. Bart was kept there because a young man had kept him as a pet when he was very young. Bart was a crow. He was a rascal and messy. The man tried to release him. He did not want to go.  He did not know what to do with Bart, so Bart came to live in the nature museum.

One day as I was cleaning the bottom of Bart's cage, he turned around on his perch and shot a poop right at me. It JUST missed.... my head! Then he faced me again and laughed. Yes, he laughed as a human does. Boy was I mad! For years I thought crows were punks because of Bart. Yes, it is true. I have since come to realize they are quite intelligent.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to toss out our old hot dog buns onto the trampoline in the back yard. You know, see if they would be brave enough to venture onto a trampoline. Oh they came to our neighbors, but it took almost a week for them to care about the buns on the trampoline. They came several days in a row and squawked and made a fuss. No one was brave enough to go get the food. Then as I sat at the kitchen table and stitched I caught sight of a crow who landed right on that trampoline. He thought for a bit as he walked timidly. He picked up a bun and off he flew. So no picture that day. Since then I have been listening for the noisy crow caws and go straight for the camera and the back window.
This first crow flew off seconds later with that half of a bun. The second and third pictures show the crow working away at Oatnut bread. ;) He could not free it from the snow. I went out and kicked it loose and he returned and flew off with it.
In other news, I finished reading the short book The Gift by T. Davis Bunn. A good, easy read. I also finished Leviticus and am into Numbers in the Bible now.

Thank you for your visit today and your friendship.

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

23 comments:

Barbi said...

LOL! Sounds like Bart knew exactly what he was doing!

Caitlin D said...

hahaha! Bart was an impudent little thing! My grandmother has been feeding the birds (mainly squirrels) for years. To the point that you could tell which ones went to her feeder they were SO fat!!!

I look forward to seeing more of your progress.

Annette-California said...

You sure did not let Bert over whelm you from your past experience. Loved how you freed the slice of bread for the crow. You did good Vickie! Looking forward to seeing your chocolate linen stitching and your LK!
love Annette

StitchinByTheLake said...

We get a lot of crows here but they come in herds when they come - hundreds at a time! blessings, marlene

Margaret said...

Very interesting! I've heard crows are very intelligent. Wasn't there some study done where a crow figured out various puzzles faster than a dog could? Or something. lol!

Frances said...

Hahaha--yes, Bart did that on purpose, I'm sure!!!
I do like the beautiful black feathers on the crow.
Can't wait to see your stitching--I'm sure it's lovely!

Brigitte said...

We also have lots of crows and magpies around here. And yes, they can be rather noisy. But at the moment we have lots and lots of sparrows in the trees around the house and they are making even more noise than the cows and magpies at times, lol.

Julie said...

How strange you are writing about crows. I was reading my book this morning and in that is way saying crows are very clever birds.. who would have thought I would be reading about it again a few hours later... strange world!

Maggee said...

We have a few crows visit the neighborhood, but European Starlings are the pests on my street. I am constantly scaring them off my feeders, cause they would clean me out daily! And I so much prefer the small, pretty songbirds! I look forward to seeing your brown and pink project! We have about 6 inches of snow on everything this morning. Hugs!

butterfly said...


Love the story of Bart , I love all birds they are so funny and I wast alot of time watching them hugs.

Daniela Bencúrová said...

Black crows are nice!
I look forward to sewing:-))

Stitchy Mc Floss said...

Shame on Bart! Wow, I had no idea how truly smart crows could be. That is awesome. I know most birds are thinkers. If you watch them long enough, you can see how they think. They will sit there and twist their heads all around and try to figure out how to get what ever it is they need down. Usually they can figure it out, not always, but it's always amazing to see when it does happen.

Oh brown and pink...I am so looking forward to seeing that!

Blessings to you always sweet friend.

The Knitting Cross Stitcher said...

I read an article today about a little girl who puts food out for the neighbourhood crows and they leave her gifts.Buttons ,shells,shiny objects and the odd less pleasant gift.She has catalogued them and keeps them in plastic bags..her treasures from her feathered friends.

Carolien said...

Hello Vickie,

Such a strange 'relationships' between humans and crows, giggle.
The last crows were very lucky you 'freed' the gifts for them. I never really liked crows, and I haven't changed my mind dramatically after reading this. Bart is a rascal indeed!!!

Take care & have a nice weekend & (sorry, again) love your dogs.

KimM said...

HA! HA! Bart is such a comedian!! You made me laugh.
Stay warm
xxx

Beth said...

Crows are pretty darned smart! You look like you are cold and white!

rosey175 said...

I am somewhat meh about crows. I appreciate their cleverness but the CAW CAW CAAAAAAAAWWWWWs are horribly jarring when you're trying to sleep hah! My mind also associates them with death so I can't be entirely happy to see them. That Bart though, totally a punk ahaha.

Anonymous said...

Great crow pics! My current camera doesn't do a great job with crows - especially against a white background. These are gorgeous!

Ann at Beadlework. said...

I've always liked crows, they are so clever. I remember watching a nature programme once and ti showed crows finding solutions to various problems - it was really interesting. We get them every day in our garden at the moment - the cheeky squirrels who visit are the only ones who stand up to them.

Meari said...

LOL, that is too funny... your crow story! Glad he missed your head, though. That would've been terrible. I'm not overly fond of crows... they're scavengers in my book, and not very pretty birds.

Vonna Pfeiffer said...

I feed the crows too :) Just bread and buns that are old thrown out on the ground in the winter. I can get a whole gaggle of them to come and take the bread. And they are loud! But I feel like they are beautiful....of course an older lady that lives by me said, "Why do you feed those nasty crows?! They kill baby birds in the spring!" I don't know if they do or if they don't kill baby birds, but I still feed them because I like watching them and are a part of God's creatures great and small...

Melanie said...

I like crows in theory and you have to respect how intelligent they are but I admit I would annoyed if a neighbor was doing something to keep them around. They are major bullies to the local songbirds and eat their eggs/young, etc. We get a group that settle in every summer for a few weeks and I hate it. They are no less a predator than a hawk but they just seem to be SO loud and obnoxious about it because they travel in a group vs. being solitary. A group of them is just....no. lol

Анна Гончарова said...

Прекрасные фотографии!