The Bird and the Mother-In-Law

I was over at L's Mom's house this morning. As I took my leave, she was standing in the open doorway talking to me. At that time, a bird decided that it would like a tour of the house and nose dived past MIL and into the house. Needless to say, I got recruited for bird chasing and removal duty.

The bird flew to and fro and finally came to rest in the living room behind the knick-knack tower in the corner. It looked to be an adolescent crow. It certainly had little fear of humans as it sat there daring me to make it move. After a few desultory hand waves and some calming words, the bird finally decided a change of venue was in order and flew across the dining room table to the desk on the other wall. After calmly walking across the papers there, it took a moment to sit on the top of the letter opener.

This time when I finally convinced it to move on, it flew into the kitchen and hopped up on the kitchen counter. After performing a strut along the counter, it then tried the lids to all the cannisters to see if they would open. When that failed, he hopped up on the cooking utensils sitting in the wooden jar on the counter. There are few things funnier that a crow giving you a quizzical look while perched on the edge of a spatula.

Finally tiring of the kitchen, the young intruder returned to the living room and perched on the wall tapestry, looking much like a wood pecker. Then he dropped off and flew over to perch on the magazine rack. At this point, the MIL and I figured the game was up. He was sitting at the juncture of one arm of a T shaped hall, with one of the arms leading to the now propped open door he had entered. I took one arm of the T and MIL the other and we crowded the bird on out the door, which we immediately closed.

What made the whole thing extraordinary was how little fear of humans the bird showed. Even after being chased out of the house, he proceeded to stay a few feet from me as I started walking home. Makes me suspect someone has been working on taming the young crow as a pet.. Crows are among the most intelligent and resourceful birds around and are known to form relationships with people, so I hope the bird finds his way back to his person.

Time to head for the sack. Goodnight.and don't let the birds get you.