Yesterday morning, as I was drinking my coffee and reading the newspaper, I heard a murder of crows making a racket out back. I looked out the kitchen door and saw two giant ones sitting on the deck railing and the rest of their gang spread out in the river birch in the backyard, all looking at my house and cawing. I thought it was pretty cool until I realized that they were not looking at my house, but at the robin’s nest above the door.
Mama robin has been tending to her eggs for a couple weeks now, and we’ve been excitedly awaiting their emergence. She tolerates my presence and will usually stay on her nest when I step out onto deck; she’s also okay with the kids and Sasha, but she hits her limit when Chris goes out because with his height, he simply comes too close. She’ll sound her alarm and fly off to a nearby tree to wait until he gets the heck away from her nest. It must kill her to have to abandon the nest like that, right?
My heart skipped a beat as I flung open the door and saw a crow fly away from above the door. I got a chair and peered into the nest and saw four perfect blue eggs. The crows on the deck had flown away, but not without telling me off, and the gang was still in the tree, verbally abusing me. Once Sasha came out, they flew away and didn’t come back. I went back in the house and asked Edwin how many eggs were in the nest, since he’s been the one most closely monitoring the nest. Please let it be four, I thought. “Four,” he said. Whew. Mama’s babies were safe for now.
I sat back down to finish my coffee and mull over my distaste for the crows. Then I thought, “That’s not really fair; everybody’s got to eat.” Then again, why were they all hanging out watching? It wasn’t as if they would all share in the spoils; there simply wasn’t enough to go around. Were they taking pleasure in it? Were they just bored? What gives? Why they gotta be that way?
My Corner of the Village 