Edgar and the Mice

We have had to start setting mouse traps.  Wintertime always sees a population boom.  I wouldn't mind as I actually like mice but they do tunnel into the aviaries making nice snake sized holes for nice snakes to come in and feast on nice budgerigars.  Yesterday we had 3 mice in two traps.  Think our mouse population is healthy.  Anyway, thought these freshly dead mice would make a nice meal for Edgar.  And oh, he was excited by the prospect of Mouse Tartare! 

Oh, he crunched those little mouse skulls.  He pulled at their little mouse feet.  He carried them here.  He carried them there.  He turned them over and turned them back again.  He picked them up and put them down.  He flew them into the trees and flew them back down again.  He checked to see if they would fit between two rocks.  He checked to see if they fit in the rubber matting (they did).  He held them proudly in his beak while turning to look beguilingly over his shoulder at me.

He did everything but eat them.

Finally, bored, he stuffed them back into the rocks and came over to see what other tidbits I had for him to eat. 

While waiting for me to unwrap the meat he snapped ferociously at a gnat.  It was so small I don't know if he killed it or not.

After he'd eaten I gathered the moist rumpled bodies of the mice and carried them into the paddock.  Another game!  Edgar came too.  I put the mice down and left.  He can stuff them into mouse-sized holes away from the house because if I don't find where he puts them (if he puts them near the house) they are going to stink in a few days.

Another morning, another mouse.  I called him and gave him the mouse in the paddock. 

He's also getting a small dog bone two or 3 times a week.  More excitement.  He pins it down with his toenails and pulls the meat with his beak.  He does it very well.  No doubt after having much practice on the clothes pegs.  Am now drying the clothes on the verandah.  Thank you, Edgar.

Edgar, The Insufferable

Today it hit me why Edgar (who packs quite a feathered sledgehammer!) came into my world.  For years, for some unfathomable reason, I've drawn crows.  One would think, because of the parrots in my life, and because of their jewel-like colouring begging to be painted, that they are the ones which would people, rather bird, my sketchbook.   But no, although I have drawn the odd galah and scaly-breasted, a crow is my bird of choice. 

And so one chose me, in a plausible demonstration of sympathetic magic.  Which is a good a way as any to lead into an Edgar update.  In short, he's doing very well.  He's fed as often as he wails for food and is in glamorous black plumage.  He has a bath every few days when I put the birdbath in his aviary to keep his black top hat and tails in tip top condition. 

But he's also becoming somewhat overbearing, or should I say overcrowing.  When I'm under the gazebo, at the bird table, trying to make up everyone's feed in the morning, or dismantling it in the afternoon, he's walking all over the coop cups, stealing the green scratchie used to scrub the water dishes, nicking the plastic coated wire used to affix Dimitri's water dish to the mesh.  Marching with his size 14 dirty crow feet over and through everything I'm trying to do, while keeping up a continuous grumbling complaint.   I've taken to picking him up, which he hates, and dropping him onto the ground.  Of course he doesn't hit the ground as he can fly but at least he's off the table.

When I put the food out in the morning, despite the fact that he has been fed first (and sat with and cajoled just to make sure he's had enough and he's full), he follows me from aviary to aviary, landing with a solid thump (a delicate ballet dancer he ain't) on top of the cages.  Poor Dimitri and the budgies don't cope as well as the galahs to his heavy footed marches across the aviary roof.  The galahs watch, raise their crests, sometimes give little cries of alarm but Dimitri flops to the ground (with one wing he has no choice but to flop) and scurries for a cover that isn't there.  I have put a large solid tin box (that won't disintegrate in the rain)  on the aviary floor which he has used once or twice so maybe he's getting the idea.  The budgies fly from one end of the aviary to the other while Edgar races across the top chasing them.  (He has a similar reaction to the advent of a blow fly, this fevered excitement and giving chase.  Of course, like the budgies protected by wire, a blowfly easily outmaneuvers him).

Edgar frequently puts things in things.  He picks up bits of bark or a stick or food, if I let him, and puts it in whatever hole he can find, even if the hole is one he makes at the base of a grass clump.  Cracks in the concrete, the holes in a brick, the hole in a screw-on food dish, the gap between my toes - anything where he can push his prize in with his surprisingly strong beak.

The other day he had a conversation with a crow and flew off in its direction.  Here we go, I thought, he's made contact.  But he was soon back with no crow in tow.  I feel bad sometimes as it is obvious he is often trying to tell me something important that has nothing to do with food.  But I, being a thick human,  have yet to translate what he says with such fervour.    Which is all quite sad.  I spend a fair amount of time with him if I can.  He seems to like having his head massaged and seems to relax while my fingers back stroke his head feathers.  Edgar makes it obvious when he doesn't want me to leave by running/flying in front of me as I head to the house.  One misstep would be disastrous so I am very careful.

When I am working outside I hope he will hang around then for companionship but as working outside usually means I have something in my hand;  a rake, a bucket, a wheelbarrow, a chipping hoe, he doesn't come near me.  Guess crows have been prosecuted so long by long narrow exploding things, it is hardwired into them to stay away. 

Wonder what would happen if I started drawing elephants?

Edgar the Crow

Two days ago we found a crow.  A baby crow screaming its head off in the long grass by the side of the road.  It sounded more like a frog being taken by a snake than a crow so when I investigated I walked really really slow, peering as best I could through the grass.  Green snakes are harmless but browns are deadly.  Even when the crow was at my feet he was difficult to see.  When I did see him, I saw a bundle of black and grey spiky pin feathers and a yawning red cavern from which the squawks were coming.

Took him home and dug out the emergency rations of frozen mince.  Squirted a bit of water in his mouth with a syringe as I suspect he was dehydrated (next day found his first poop buried in the folds of the cloth used as emergency bedding.  It was pure poop with no urine and as big as the first joint of my little finger). 

For two days I have put off writing about Edgar as I wasn't sure he'd pull through.   He wasn't eating much and seemed very very weak as his head kept flopping backwards onto his back.  That didn't seem normal.  The heat hasn't helped.  Today I've put a cloth covered ice bag in his basket which seems to help.  Today he seems stronger, his head rarely flops back and he eats with more gusto and less coaxing.  Oddly his eyes aren't fully open.

At first I thought he was a casualty of the Channel Billed Cuckoos.  Thought the cuckoo nestlings either ejected the crow eggs or the crow nestlings but that's not what they do.  They actually do nothing

but eat and as they are bigger, grow faster and are stronger than the crow babies, the parents feed them and neglect their own offspring until they starve to death and are thrown from the nest. 

Looking up in the gum tree which looms over the area where Edgar was found, there was a nest on an outermost branch.  It is so high up the tree I can't tell whether the nest is intact or whether there are other babies.  It appeared to be empty. So I don't know whether Edgar was an accident or a victim.

In any case, the task now is to get him well enough and strong enough to move outside into half the galah's aviary.  The less contact I have with him the better if he is to survive in the wild as a wild crow.  The local crows, and there are at least two which live in the mugga ironbark, need to notice and accept him into their circle.  A big ask. 

If I can find that fine line between which he knows to come to me for supplemental feeding at the same time as he maneuvers his way into local society, I will have succeeded.  The fate of tame crows, unless kept permanently in an aviary, is grim.  They don't survive. 

In the meantime, we'll just muddle through.  He's still, compared to photos of other crows his age, very weak.