Life during nesting season is quite exciting enough for most crows.

Keeping the babies in the nest fed and un-eaten by others provides enough thrills,  thank-you very much.

Bongo usually deals with these challenges with expeditious equanimity. Eagle needs chasing — no problem. A cat stalking the nest needs to be schooled — count him in.

Last weekend, however, brought a sudden and (from a crow’s perspective) existential threat: an unprovoked attack from the very sky!

It was a quiet, damp, grey morning as we were walking the dog. Bongo, as usual, was keeping guard from a fence near the nest.

We humans had some warning, having heard hail was in the forecast, but from Bongo’s point of view, it was nothing short of a cataclysm when, suddenly and randomly, the sky declared war.

To his credit, he wasted no time running around and crying “The sky is falling!” but dove immediately under the nearest parked car.

The hail was short-lived and Bongo emerged unscathed — but with newly developed trust issues.

 

He kept looking at me too. I often find that the crows give me baleful looks in terrible weather, perhaps wondering if it was I who pulled the “make it rain/hail/snow” lever by accident.

In the storm’s immediate aftermath, Bongo’s head would snap up every few seconds to keep an eye on the now unreliable sky.
Inspired by his experience, and as a reminder of how other creatures perceive the world in a different way than we do, I have made a new print, called Up.

In another exciting, but unrelated, Bongo episode it appeared that he’d discovered the magic trick of disappearing his head into the road surface. Perhaps practicing for more hail?

 

 

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CALENDAR NEWS!
The new City Crow (with guest ravens) calendar is almost ready to go to the printer and it will be available to pre-order on my website very soon. Stay tuned for updates!

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