Oh Crow!

Today was a typical Friday until a bad thing happened.

For the last three years or so I have been feeding crows bread and cheap dry dog kibble after work in our parking lot. I used to do it back at my home in MN too. I think if I had a spirit animal it would be the crow.

There are a few different crow families around our office that break up into individual familes during the summer and come together into a huge (30 +) flock in the fall. A number of them recognize either me or my car and will come in and perch in the trees above me when they spot me. Its fun in the fall because the whole flock will be waiting for me at the same time every night - perched everywhere like a scene from "The Birds" and swirl all around me as I get the chow out. I leave after most people but a few folks have seen it and have been duly impressed.

But today wasn't good. I put the food out for the family representatives that came to gather it. They usually hop along with that funny crow gallop, filling their beaks, and then fly off and hide the food by pushing it into the ground. After doing this today, one of the crows was on her return back and she collided with a car.

I can still see it. It was a white car and she hit it and tumbled on to the road. I almost felt the blow myself as the car hit her. The stupid driver never even slowed down even though he had to know he hit the bird. I saw her rolling in the road, wings askew so I could tell she wasn't dead.

I got into my car and drove down to the road. Her family was already there in the powerlines and trees croaking and caawing. I went into my trunk and got a handful of paper towels to wrap her with before I picked her up. They do have very sharp beaks and I didn't want her thrashing about. I was panicked because I didn't have anything like a box to put her into. I couldn't tell if her wings were broken. We have bird rehabbers here I just didn't know how I could get her to them. I was crying and she was blinking at me with panicked grayish crow eyes.

I went to put her on the top of my car to see if I could unwrap her enough to check her wings. She started to struggle with enough force that I decided to put her on the grass. To my astonishment she flapped up into the branches of a nearby tree. My heart soared and I yelled "oh yeah!" thinking she would be fine.

I decided to stick around and watch and as I did it was clear she wasn't okay. She couldn't get from branch to branch and her wings weren't working right. Now that she was up in the tree I couldn't get to her. So reluctantly I left.

I plan to get up early and drive into town and check on her.