Pat had put the food out and all five crows were eating. The original five crows, including the guy with the mangled foot, were busy scoffing it up. We were to have a new dishwasher installed that morning, and while the crows were eating, the installer showed up in his truck. The installer backed his truck into the driveway and scared the crows into flight. One crow went to the neighbor’s liquid amber tree, and the rest just disappeared. We determined that the one in the tree was the one who liked to make conversation with Pat. It is a little smaller than the boss crow, and we figure it to be a female or an offspring. For identification purposes, I’ll call it “The Talker.”

The Talker didn’t know why that guy and that truck were in our driveway, and he was sounding the alarm. The installer was here about an hour, and The Talker raised hell the entire time. It was giving us the “Trill, trill, trill” and “Caw, caw, caw” over and over. What a mouth!

The installer loaded the old dishwasher into his truck and picked up the packing materials he had stacked on the driveway, and he placed all the trash in the truck also. He came back into the house and took a look to see that everything was clean. When finished, Pat walked him to the door. As the guy walked to his truck, The Talker came out of his tree, and the other four crows appeared. They were flying in circles, doing fly-by’s on the guy, and screaming caws at the top of their lungs at him. The guy turns around to Pat and says, “I don’t think these crows like me.” How perceptive.

As usual, we will be left with a question. Were the crows sounding the alarm against a trespasser? Or were they just mad because the guy interrupted their breakfast?

Dave Thomas

4/18/2024