Fledglings

Crows amaze me. They build strong communities, care for one another, even look after one another's young, form monogamous pairs, and they are committed parents. We have a nest in one of the palm trees in our back yard and on Monday a fledgling fell from the nest. It wasn't injured and quickly made its way into the bougainvillea at the corner of our patio.

We talked to some wildlife people who told us this is a common occurrence at this time of their life cycle and that as long as the fledgling was not injured, the parents would feed it until it was large enough to fly. They also protect it. Walk out our back door and immediately they begin to scold you. Before we knew what would happen, I put on some leather gloves and picked the fledgling up. The entire murder gather in the trees around our back yard - at least 20 crows - all yelling at me to leave the young one alone. When I put him back in the bougainvillea, all left except the parents.

Tuesday morning when I went for my daily walk, the parents followed me, yelling all of the time, for three blocks and then returned to watch over the young crow.

This morning a second fledgling fell from the nest so now we have two young crows in our back yard. It is noisy, but fun to watch them and wait with their parents until they take to the sky.