Tuesday, November 8, 2011

MSED: Bird a Day #110 Jim Crow

The summer that I was nine or maybe ten, our family stayed at Gram and Grampa's House. We spent a lot of summer time there. My dad was in the Navy and we lived out-of-state most of the time and Gram and Gramp had an Olympic sized pool so when summer time came, off to Michigan we would travel to be pampered and spoiled and loved. But that particular summer was even more special to me. A crow kept coming to visit us around the pool and as time went on he became bolder and bolder stealing anything shiny or bright that he could fly away with, bits of tin foil, a toy car. 
Now I was a kid that would play with a garter snake or a leopard frog all day long and Oh Joy! if I found a field mouse! I just had to make that crow mine! I didn't try to capture it because it was a wild creature and it needed to be free (read: the grown ups didn't want to deal with a pet crow!) By the end of the summer Jim and I were best buddies (in my mind). I would run outside first thing in the morning, still in my PJ's, to greet MY bird and more often than not he was there! One of his favorite things to do was to sit on my head and peck me. And Yes, it hurt but I knew he didn't mean to peck that hard, he loved me as much as I loved him, after all.
Me and Jim on the deck. My Grampa took these pics and he had this really cool camera.
When the pics were developed there was one large square print and three small ones that ran
down the side of the large one. These are the small ones 1.5 inches square.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, that must have been amazing as a kid! I love crows and ravens. Heck, it would be amazing as an adult! Once I went to a wildlife rehabilitator's house in Colorado to drop off a baby bird found in the road. She was probably in her 80's or 90's and took us on a tour of her house. She had a big chain link dog kennel in her living room and a permanently injured raven in it. She would ask him, "When are you going to be good?" and he replied "Never. Never." I was entranced. Those are great photos of you with Jim!

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  2. Seems to me I tried to get this bird to talk too, but he wasn't having any of it. He was his own bird even if I did wish him mine :) Thanks for you comments!

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