Young Crows Have Blue Eyes

[blackmare]

Or: Quoth the Raven, "Dude, GET ME OUT OF HERE."

I was doing prep work for a paint job today, in the basement of a nice house. Much like Poe, I heard a rapping, tapping on the cellar door window. When I finally went to see what was causing it, this is the face that greeted me:



I've made art featuring crows for about four years now, but I'd never been this close to one. The basement window wells at this house are very deep, about 4', and this young crow had somehow hopped or fallen into one -- and it couldn't get out. Look closely, and you'll see that it still has blue eyes, because it's really just a fledgling.



It's at times like these that I know Douglas Adams was right, and a towel really is one of the Universe's most useful items. I borrowed an old beach towel from the clients, hopped into the window well and gently tossed the towel over the terrified crow. Birds have an interesting reaction wherein, when they can't see, their brains sort of shift into Neutral. That and the protective layer of fabric allowed me to get the young crow out of the hole without either of us getting hurt. That beak looked really, REALLY sharp.



When I unwrapped the towel, the poor crow simply lay still, as if in a daze, for quite a while. I could probably have stroked its feathers, but it had been through more than enough trauma by then.



I found Crow Junior on the sidewalk later on, when I was leaving work. It got through the fence (eventually, hah) and then called for its family, and within a minute there were about five adult crows gathered, cursing at me for being so close. They'd converged on their youngster and clearly were going to take care of it until it could get back into the trees on its own. That part, watching all the elders coming to the rescue, was truly fascinating.

Comments

[loligo]

Thanks for sharing this -- that's fascinating about the eye color!

[blackmare]

Yeah, I had read about the eye color shift a long time ago, while looking up reference photos for art purposes, but this is the first time I've seen a young, blue-eyed crow in real life.

I know they're considered pests and I understand why, but I really, really dig crows.

[boxofdelights]

Thank you!

[blackmare]

:-)

It was pretty amazing to get to hold a crow in my hands (well -- through a layer of terrycloth) after several years of watching them, drawing and painting them.

[clare_dragonfly]

Wow, poor little crow! I'm glad you were able to rescue it. You are a good person. And what a cool story.

[blueswan]

I'm glad the story had a happy ending.

[blackmare]

Yep, me too. I was so relieved to see all the elders coming to take care of the "kid." I believe they'd been looking for it for a while but unable to find it, down there in that hole.

[lavendertook]

Awwww! Lucky for the crow to have you to the rescue. And yay for a supportive family taking the baby home!

[blackmare]

The family coming to the rescue was the best part -- although I'll admit I got into my car at that point because I feared getting dive-bombed. :-D I won't be surprised if that crow family holds a grudge when I go back to the job site, because for all they know I was trying to kill the kid.

[untonuggan]

What a sweet story! Yay towels!

[blackmare]

Towels are wonderful. I probably ought to keep one in my car at all times.

I've made art featuring crows for about four years now, starting not long after I left South Florida (where crows aren't all that common) and moved to the Twin Cities. I enjoy their intelligence and love to look at them, so it was really fun for me to get that close to one, though I'd have preferred if the poor thing didn't think I was going to kill it.

[egret]

I love this post! Thanks for sharing it!

[blackmare]

You're welcome! I thought people here might get a kick out of it. I was just glad I had my phone and thought to take some shots; it's not the sort of thing that happens every day.

[zillah975]

Yay crow rescue!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 There are not enough good words in the world for this, and for you for doing this deed!

[blackmare]

See, to me this was a Very Fun Adventure. :-D I'm sure the crow would disagree, though.

[spiralsheep]

Well done. I've also used the towel trick successfully on bats* and smaller dogs, in addition to birds.

* UK = no rabies.

[blackmare]

Heh, yeah, I grew up in the country and we had chickens in the back yard. If you needed to calm one down to carry it somewhere, you put something over its head and it magically stopped struggling. Years later, I used a piece of black velvet to get a woodpecker out of the house without anyone getting hurt (can you imagine getting pecked by that? YOUCH).

I didn't want to have to pick the crow up if I didn't have to, because I knew it would scare the thing half to death. So I tried placing a branch and the handle of a rake, diagonally in the space so that the little guy could hop on and use one or the other items as a ramp to get out of there. I went back to work to let him figure it out. An hour later, he hadn't even tried to get out that way, and that's when I borrowed the towel.

[spiralsheep]

I was once handed a cormorant (i.e. a bird-shape fishing spear) by a foolish ranger who'd "rescued" it in... a cardboard box, OUCH! Oh, and for maximum potential chaos, the flaps on the top of the box weren't sealed. I'd've taken a woodpecker for preference. ::wryface::

Crows are smart but, like all the smarter beasties, that means they need time to think new situations through.

[blackmare]

YIKES, yes, I'm from Florida and I know what a cormorant is. We called them anhingas.

Intelligence aside, I don't think this young bird really had the coordination or experience to have worked out the problem the way an adult might have. There were a lot of droppings, so I think it had been trapped for at least a day by then. The poor bird was continuing to exhaust itself banging against the glass, and I decided the towel trick was the least harmful solution. Especially since I was going to have to leave soon.

[turlough]

I didn't know baby birds had blue eyes. How cool. And oh yes, a towel is totally an indispensable item when handling animals! My mother used one to get a bat outside last summer.

[blackmare]

I don't think most young birds have blue eyes, but crows do! Quite a drastic shift from that to the bright yellow they later become.

[solitarywalker]

Interesting encounter. i have not seen a young one before, or at least not up close enough to know what i was seeing.

[lark_ascends]

Towels definitely are very useful.

Good on you!