This is a guest post from my dad. It is important to note that no crows were harmed in the creation of this post…although I can't say the same for the rabbits.
When I was a
very young boy, I did a lot of “hunting”.
I guess I should admit that I wasn’t really hunting in the true sense of
the word but rather I was tramping around looking for something to shoot. I am sad to admit that the something could be
animal, vegetable, or mineral and was nothing more than an excuse to shoot my
rifle, a target if you will.
Let me quickly add that my specialty was
vegetable and mineral targets because I couldn’t get the hang of hitting a
moving target and most of the animal variety targets understood the game and
refused to be still while I zeroed in and shot.
That is most but not all animals hauled ass when they saw me coming.
There were some rabbits who thought they could
hide by remaining motionless as I approached.
My trusty dog enjoyed them very much.
I guess it never occurred to him that I may have wanted to feast on my
prey or at least share the spoils of the “hunt”. But then, even though he was just a dog, he
knew this was not a true hunt and good conduct rules did not apply. Besides, rabbit for dinner was a rare
occurrence and we would have starved to death if limited to the contents of my
game bag.
There was
another critter that refused to leave at the first sight of the “mighty
hunter”. The black crow could be counted
on to hold his ground until the last moment before flying off and cawing as
though laughing at his would be attackers.
Very strange behavior, and yet it got stranger. The wily old crow never
provided a target that could be satisfying so, in time I began to ignore his
presence altogether.
On occasion
I would carry a single barrel shotgun instead of my rifle. On one occasion while carrying the shotgun I
looked up and saw a crow watching me from his perch in a nearby tree. He had allowed me to get very close and had
not yet flown. I could not believe how
close the crow and I were. If I had my
rifle the crow would have been shot for sure but I had my shotgun and the crow
was just out of range. I took about two
or three steps to get in range and that rascal flew away, cawing as he went.
I didn’t
think much about this encounter until several days later while carrying my
rifle in the same area when I saw a crow in the same tree. He was watching me as before. I don’t know if this was the same crow or one
of his relatives but I remember thinking that I would be able to get a shot at
the crow this time because I now had my rifle.
I was wrong. I had assumed that
the crow would let me get as close as before but he did not. Just as I got close enough to take a rifle
shot, off he went cawing all the way.
I refused to
let myself draw any conclusions from these two encounters. Crows just cannot be that smart, can
they?
In the days
and months that followed, I had many sightings of crows, sometimes while
carrying a rifle and other times a shotgun.
I paid very close attention to the actions of the crows. The birds never failed to adjust the range to
the weapon that I carried. It is as if they knew the difference between a rifle
and a shotgun and could identify these different guns at a distance.
All I can
say is that crows have made a believer out of me. They are very smart and I am told that crows
can live 50 to 75 years of age. My
response to that is to say that I never shortened the life span of a crow with
a rifle or a shotgun…but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
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