Turkeys and Raptors and Crows — Oh My!: A Small Thanksgiving Drama

On Thanksgiving, my husband cooks the turkey (this, by the way, is all the mention that turkeys will get in this post). It’s his job because he’s really, really good at it. And his stuffing is even better. It’s a wonderful tradition, don’t you think?

 

However, our house does not have an exhaust fan in the kitchen, so sometimes the aromas of whatever is roasting and simmering and getting nuked in the microwave can get a little heavy. So at one point I opened the door to let some fresh air into the house and stepped out to let some fresh air into my lungs.

Across the way, on the edge of the park, there’s an old cottonwood that’s on the edge of death and probably will be for the next fifty years. It’s sort of a neutral zone for the neighborhood birds and squirrels. Often one can see nesting hawks, busy-body robins, clustering sparrows, and courting doves all in the tree at the same time, and at dawn, often an owl.

So I wasn’t surprized to see a crow (it might have been a raven. We have those too. But the tail looked more crow-like to me, so I’m going with crow. If anyone who knows more about birds than I do thinks it’s a raven, please speak up) and a red-tailed hawk (I looked that up in our bird book, so I feel a bit more sure of my identification here) hanging out amicably in the cottonwood.

BUT (and here’s where the drama begins) — there was another crow lurking in a different tree on other side of our neighbourhood and it began screaming and cawing and screaming and cawing, then screaming and cawing some more. It was obviously out of sorts.

I saw the crow and the hawk in the cottonwood look at each other. I swear they shrugged.

 

 

 

Then the farther crow apparently got to the one in the cottonwood because it shook its feathers and started squawking at the hawk.

 

The hawk tried to ignore all the noise. It even gave me a look that seemed to say “You see with what I have to put up?” (Hawks are total grammar wardens.)

 

 But the crows wouldn’t let up. The one I couldn’t see kept egging on the one by the park, and that one kept kvetching at the hawk. The hawk tried giving it the evil eye. It didn’t work. The crow started flapping around and jumping from branch to branch.

The hawk gave me another look. I’m not sure what it thought I was supposed to do. I was clearly a disappointment.

Then the crow took up a position directly over the hawk, paused, and dived at the raptor.

Now the hawk was rather bigger than the crow. It’s a hunting bird, fierce, far-seeing, fearless. The crow is a scavenger. It just sits around waits for stuff to die or for other animals to kill things. So you’d think the outcome would be obvious, that the hawk would bat the crow upside the head and show the corvid who was the boss.

But no, nope, not at all. The hawk took off and the crow harried it to another tree, away from the neighbourhood, at the far side of the park.

Job done, the crow flew off and settled on one of the lights by the baseball field.

As I turned off my camera and turned to go back in, the other crow, the one that had really instigated the whole affair, apparently dissatisfied with the job the first crow had done, burst out of the tree where it had been hiding, hared after the hawk, and proceeded to circle the tree where the hawk had sought refuge.

And that’s where I left them: the hawk in the pine, one crow surveying the empty baseball field, the other making small circles over the hawk.

Is there a point or a moral? I don’t think so. If you come up with one, let me know in the comments.

While We Keep Waiting; The Peach Tree Chronicles, Part III

I found a panel in a comic that seems to encapsulate this moment:

That’s how I feel, too. (You can peruse the whole comic here.)

I keep reading on-line pieces here and there that are versions of “I didn’t want to talk about the COVID-19 situation, but…” (for example, go over to Mountain of Ink and read Kelli’s post on “Quarantine 2020 Ink Palettes.” Be sure to check out the link to the dreaming octopus, too. It’s amazing). I do want to talk about the coronavirus, but am having a difficult knowing what to say. I’ve been trying to walk some line between taking the pandemic seriously enough and not freaking out, but all the confusion, the almost non-existent testing, the lack of support for those fighting this disease, the lethal carelessness of the president and governors —well, freaking out begins to look like the reasonable response.

I continue to use my camera to mark the days and to remind myself there is still much beauty in the world. The moon has gone from this,

to this,

to this,

 

 

 

 

 

and, finally, to this:

 

There have been sunsets drenched in all kinds of colours:

 

 

 

 

 

And after one, long, sleepless night, there was a magnificent sunrise.

It got caught in the reflection and frost on our car’s windows.

In my pjs and coat, I sneaked across the street to the park to watch the sun appear.

 

The park was full of crows. 

You can see one flying low across the field in these two:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun tinged the mountains and clouds pink,

made the eastern sky flame,

and stained the tree bark and pine cones russet.

Frost rimed the grass and the soccer field sparkled in the sun.

Spring continues to unfold, just as if there were no corona viruses in the world. The daffodils are rising like the sun and my apple tree begins to put out leaves.

 

And while most of the blossoms on the peach tree survived,

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a few took a hit.

 More wintry weather is due this weekend.

I hope you all are staying well and staying at home as much as possible.