[whitecree]

Just got back from my morning constitutional, a brisk 2 mile walk down to the community wharf. On the way back, I see a raven hotly pursued by a couple of crows. This is fairly common as crows don't get along with much of anybody.

Anyway, the raven swoops by overhead and just as he is about to go directly over, he sideslips just a bit and lightens his load. Splat! Bird doings six inches from my left foot.

I turn and am snickering at brother raven for missing (or was it deliberate, or just evading a crow?) and about to be childish with sticking my tongue out at him and going 'nyah nyah' when I recalled a cute incident from a decade or so ago.

I was helping an Elder build a couple of 42' dugout canoes in the spring of '93. Ever since we had started in late February, we had been graced with the presence of a lone eagle perched in a balsam close to where we were working.

One day, we had just taken a coffee break when a couple of crows started in on brother eagle. Yarkyarkyark, they just wouldn't shut up. Kept diving on the eagle, trying to budge him out of the tree. Eagle just hunched down a bit and refused to move. Kept looking away from the crows as if embarrassed by their behaviour.

One crow had the bright idea of landing on a branch below and slight to the read of the eagle while continuing his tirade of yarkyarkyark. After about five minutes of this treatment, I see the eagle half-spread his wings, stretch his neck out like he is getting ready to fly away. I nudged one of the boss carver's other helpers and make a comment to the effect that we are losing our supervisor early that day.

This worthy looks up at the eagle, then he begins to grin. "Just watch" he says.

The eagle flutters his wings a bit, aches his back and I really think I am about to be treated to the daily spectacle of an eagle commencing flight.

The one brave crow is still yarking away, unaware of what is about to happen.

The eagle's tail suddenly flicked up, the wings came partly open once more (for balance, I assume) and bombs away!

Right smack on the crow's head and shoulders, thereby turning the brave crow into a miniature version of an eagle.

The crow was so surprised, he fell off his branch and forgot to fly. Thump! into the ground. Eagle just ruffled his feathers a bit, then settled in for some more supervision. I don't remember seeing any crows harrassing that particular eagle for the rest of the spring.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Crows do enjoy fussing about almost any and everything. It is good to hear of them getting their comeuppance now and then.

Dad was not fond of them. Years ago he was walking across a field when he heard them cawing and saw them diving on a large white bird. Then he realized that the bird was a snowy owl and really became irritated at the crows as he knew this was a rare visitation and he wanted to watch the owl for a while.

While he was contemplating how to make the crows leave the owl alone the situation resolved itself. As the crows continued to dive on the snowy owl, it would just hunker down and ignore them. Until one came into just the right range. Dad said it looked as if that snowy owl did a back flip off of its fence post perch, caught the crow, banked around, landed back on the fence post and started enjoying his breakfast. The owl stayed on the fence post for an hour or so. It had a peaceful nap after its meal as things were real quiet in that neighborhood.

He never saw another snowy owl. I don’t know if it was his dislike of crows, the drama that unfolded or the fact that snowy owls don’t make it into south Louisiana very often; but, Dad always thought that it was the most beautiful bird he had ever seen.