Whirly birds

Some people don't like crows, but I do. Oh, I know they can be ruthless and mean (ever see a murder of crows harrassing an owl?) but I prefer to focus on their positive qualities. To me, they are intelligent, creative, and very funny.

These two have been hanging around our neighbourhood this summer, and keeping me company in my garden. I watch for them, and when they're in range, I talk to them (I'm a bit funny myself). Usually, they sit on the back fence and complain at me if the bird bath is empty. One of them left me a turkey bone scavenged from somebody's garbage in the birdbath water. When I dumped it out to put in fresh water, she showed up to give me heck, fished it out from behind the pumpkin plant, and humphhed herself up to the garage roof to peck at it some more, as if to say, "see, there's still good food value here."

But the funniest thing I've seen was last Friday morning. I went out to hang my laundry, and could hear cawing and commotion on our roof. So I stepped out into the yard to see what was going on, and my crow buddies were up there, one of them on top of the aluminum attic whirlybird ventilator, going for a merry-go-round ride. No kidding! I couldn't believe my eyes. The whirlybird was spinning maybe 45 revolutions per minute, and the crow was having a hard time holding on. He slipped off, and I expected that would be that, but no, he jumped up again, like a kid who couldn't get enough of a good thing. Three or four times!

So now I've named my crow friends. One is Merry, as in merry-go-round, and one is Dizzy. Yes, they're noisy and rude, but they have a wide enough range that they're not in my yard all the time, so the little birds can come and go, too. My crow friends make me laugh, out loud sometimes. And don't we all have a few obnoxious friends that we can't help but like, at least a little?