Saturday, September 4, 2010

Ravens or Crows?

After the good news that Joan's chemo treatment seems to be working, she had a horror night and day with a constricted throat almost choking her when she attempted to drink in the morning. She will probably take another few days before she is able to eat and drink her meagre ration properly and ready herself for the next assault in three weeks. Too many other side effects to list. All of this is just to keep the tumours at bay!
A couple of days ago I was standing out the front of our house farewelling a friend and we observed a Raven land on our Pencil Pine tree (Cupressus sempervirens var. Sricta) right alongside us. The Raven had a tasty morsel in its beak and it pulled aside a branch and 'squirreled' the morsel into the tree, breaking off a small branch to cover up its cache. As I feed the various birds in our backyard I notice that Magpies take one piece of the offering and worry it as though killing an insect and then tossing it down the hatch, before looking around for more. The Crows (Ravens actually) go around collecting as much food as they can get in the beak and then fly up and hide their stash in a gutter and come back for more. Smart or greedy?

3 comments:

jenny said...

My poor Joan. Chemo is such a nasty thing to go through - not to mention the damn disease. Love and hugs

Kev said...

Thanks Jen. Hopefully she will improve over the next few days.

Anonymous said...

Crows are clever. I've seen them tuck food in gaps beneath roof tiles. They also like to pinch rounded pebbles from gardens.