A true story

Crow’s chicks,
A true story. 1


The crow’s caw caw were always harsh to my ears as I never liked the tone of its dull sound, reminding me an occurrence when I was being pecked by a crow on my head twice, while too eager to come near to its nest to watch the hatching of chicks from a roof top. The unusual curiosity to watch the bird’s nest, its eggs and coming out of the chicks came from reading of the text in my school days, lesson describing; how a cuckoo deceives the crow by laying her egg in the crow’s nest.
When I shifted to reside in a flat near a big park, that inquisitiveness suddenly became a reality. As one day, I saw the he-crow and she- crow picking twig by twig from nearby areas and making a nest on a triangular niche of a tree at the front of my lounge large steel bar grilled window.
My interest grew day by day as I watched the birds lay the eggs, under the safety of my protected window of the same elevation as that of the crow’s nest on a bough. The craftiness of crows thrilled me as one crow protected the nest; the other sat on the eggs, turning it occasionally by its beak, sometimes by talons to incubate it uniformly. In addition, how the husband was feeding the hungry wife on eggs with food from its mouth or vice versa, sometimes stashing the breadcrumbs into the small berries closely knit bunches for urgent situation nourishment needs. At another time pecking wife’s neck softly, it was their only romance I saw and wondered how they mate. Some say they are unisex birds, but I was curious to know the real fact.
Suddenly one day, rare to the area, a whistling cyclone hit the town with winds roaring like howling hyenas. I went to the window, was sad to see the trees swinging like a pendulum in blinding storm, many fell down and some branches of the tree on which crow’s nest positioned also fell, making me certain that eggs and nest were gone to the wind.
Next day it rained heavily and I was unable to spot the crow’s nest, as the visibility was poor, birds were hiding away somewhere for their refuge from harsh weather. I was unable to spot the crows for three days, but the nest was safely perched as if the clever birds were aware of incoming of cyclone and chosen the strongest branch to make the nest. My disillusionment at the loss of crows hatching eggs turned into delight on a sunny day, when I saw fledglings were chirping in the nest, crows were feeding them through their beaks and my observation that only two chicks were hatched proved incorrect later.
I watched that while one crow was guarding the chicks from predators such as kites, other was out to procure food. The chicks were growing day-by-day and always famished showing their empty stomach through their open beaks, but their parents fed them well, enduring their own hunger for the sake of their young ones.
A loud caw caw from many crows in unison compelled me to rush to my watch as I saw many crows protesting for some swindle they saw and the father crow engaged in a fight with dark black looking fledgling. Soon I realized that it was cuckoo’s chick and crows had realized that reality when it grew large enough to be distinguished between their own chick and an alien’s hatchling. From somewhere cuckoo by its melodic coo called and its chick prevailed upon the crows, warded them off through its sharp talons, and fell from the clutches of foster crows to go to her real mother in the nearby bush.
After a few days, the chicks had grown enough to hop out of the nest with their parents watching them always, but had no wings to fly. They jumped from one bough to another, and then were able to take short flights to nearby trees only nevertheless protected by their parents from falling over.
Another incident happened as I saw many kites hovering over the crow’s nest and as many crows, crowing at their level best clamor, that drew me to window to know what had happened. I assumed that as the kites were zooming over the crow’s nest, birds of prey might take away one or two chicks of crow by swooping on the nest with talons full open for an easy grab of fledgling. However, the next morning I was happy to note that all the chicks were roosting well in their nest, after some days, they flew away to some distance places and nest became desolate.
The close of crow’s chick watching came one day, when I saw the mother crow fuming, her feathers, looking like hedge hog’s fluff as she was still a young crow, sitting on the same bough where nest was standing, wanted food from their parents by opening their beaks towards her, and it seemed to me that the mother said,
“Go; search your own food now”.
Bird watching is a great fun as procreation goes on, nevertheless when a crow does not peck at you on the head at your bird observation.

Written by Muhammad Rasheed, pen name: Rambler.