Watching a baby crow in the yard

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A baby crow (smaller than an adult, but fledged) visited the yard all alone, without sibling or parents. First it landed on the crow-feeding stump and ate peanuts till they were gone. Then it stayed on the stump and pecked at things only it could see: bugs, perhaps, or seeds. Then it hopped off the stump and started waddling through the yard feeling quite at home, looking left and right, pecking occasionally, once pulling up a dangling earthworm. 


This young crow’s first foray to our yard unattended reminded me of those first trips to the corner store when I was 9 and 10, walking to the store with money and without parents, providing myself with convenient food like Lay’s chips and Sunkist orange soda. In the summer it was a popsicle or ice cream sandwich. My first attempts at independent foraging produced much less protein than the first attempt of this young crow, choosing earthworm and peanuts.

I’m glad the young crows see our yard as a healthy convenient store all their own that they can visit any time of day. These young ones who until recently were fed by their parents in the nest, probably by peanuts brought back from our yard, softened in their parents' beaks, regurgitated into their hungry red mouths. The nest in the tall pine: that’s where they learned the word for eagle and other dangers that are out there in the trees. Here in our yard, when they visit, they are safe. I'll watch out for them from the window.

[This was originally written in the fall of 2020.]

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