What you don't want to do is get on the wrong side of crows, they are intelligent and have long memories and if they perceive you as a threat they will make life difficult for you. They are also long lived. I have watched crows eyeing small squirrels, when the squirrel hides the crows will walk away as though they never intended any harm to the squirrel, or were even remotely aware of the squirrel, but I have also seen a crow carrying a dead squirrel to the bough of a tree, squirrel legs dangling and swaying as he was carried away, and where he was consumed. Crows love a dead squirrel, or food from a Chinese restaurant which they will leave in the bird bath to soak. I am always courteous to crows, but I am courteous to all my bird visitors. If I enter the garden and see birds at the bird bath I stop and back out, I can return later.
I change the water in the bird bath as soon as it looks a bit dirty, no one wants to bath in dirty water, and more birds will visit when the water is fresh and clean. If I am sitting in the garden and birds begin to visit I will stay quiet and watch them, it's all peaceful coexistence in this life. Crows will also leave gifts for you and I hope I am not anthropomorphizing them, maybe I am. Last spring I found a squirrel's paw in the bird bath water, it had been skinned and was ready to eat... well, a generous gift but not for me. Another gift, not for me, was a dead baby bird in the bird bath. A gift from the crows from a few years ago was a single penny found beside the bird bath, it was a 1957 copper penny and I wonder where they ever found this old coin. Now, here is where I am probably reading something into this gift, the date on the coin was 1957, the year after my father died and of special significance for me. When I leave our home and the crows are sitting on the electric wires over head, I feel they are a message of good luck from the universe. If the crows like you they will watch over you to make sure you are safe.
Handsome fellows!
Here is the penny left by crows
This is the squirrel’s paw, skinned and ready for consumption and left by crows
One of the first things to do in any garden is to get a bird bath; a bird bath will bring you a lot of happiness, it will even bring you joy, and there will always be interesting visitors to your garden. But the thing to know about gardens is that you have to make it a desirable place to visit or your garden will remain a square of grass surrounded by a few flower beds; you need to bring some life to your garden, you might place a bird bath in the middle of the square of grass. Go to one of the big box stores and you will find bird baths in the garden centre department, they're all made in China and most will last a year or two before disintegrating, they're made of plaster with some kind of coating that disintegrates with time. I had about four bird baths before finding my current bird bath, it seems to be well made and I've had it for about four years.
One of the things about having a bird bath is that you will have different bird visitors depending on the time of year. I have many crows visit in the spring, not as many bird visitors during the summer, and in the fall I have many visitors, robins, sparrows, gold finches, blue jays, and others. In the fall there is a frenetic energy in the air, nesting has ended and some birds are about to fly south for the winter. Great excitement! I know that sparrows are here all winter but in late September they go a bit wild flying around together, having dust baths, and having a great time in the bird bath. I watch them from our dining room window, or sitting in our car in the MacDonald’s parking lot, or I might see gold finches eating seeds left on the cone flowers. This is one reason you shouldn't cut back your garden in fall, birds enjoy the remaining seeds on the flowers and it is one less thing to do before winter. Don't rake, bag, and discard the fallen leaves, it’s less work for you, just rake the leaves onto the flower beds and they will mulch your perennials and protect them from our harsh Canadian winter. These leaves will disintegrate in the spring and your plants will emerge from a bed of leaves stronger and healthier than you ever expected. If you really dislike the look of dead leaves in your garden, wait until after the last cold spell in the spring and then uncover some of your plants, but it's not necessary to do this. Last winter was one of the longest and coldest winters I have experienced, we all dread another winter like it. But none of my plants died during the winter, they were under a bed of leaves and a few bushes were wrapped with burlap, they also survived. And then the crows returned in April or May, like the welcome friends they are.
Somewhere on the West Island of Montreal beavers have returned and are bothering the local people with their behaviour, they are felling trees along the shore and the earth is being eroded there. It is not so much that nature is returning but that the natural habitat for wildlife is being invaded by people and the wildlife has nowhere to go but to live among us. It’s not so bad, food is plentiful, and the animals get used to eating what we discard. The other night, it was 4 a.m., our spotlight in the rear of the house went on and I saw a big fat raccoon walk by the basement window not three feet from where I was standing. Other visitors include skunks, rabbits, ground hogs, and many types of birds I rarely saw even five years ago; for instance, many cardinals, juncos, and other birds. I never saw any wildlife when I was growing up in this neighbourhood, on Oxford Avenue, that’s because only a few blocks away there were a few fields where animals and birds could still live. Or these animals that we didn’t see in the past are now among us, moved in from the surrounding countryside, because the off-island land is being developed. These fields that were in this neighbourhood are long gone, condos, apartment buildings, and duplexes were constructed there years ago. As another example, rue Norman (in Lachine, parallel to Highway 20) used to be wide-open fields, some of it formerly used for agriculture, now it’s an industrial zone and made up of garages, trucks, and various companies.
The main thing with a bird bath is to put in clean water everyday, no one (including birds) wants to sit in dirty or shallow water, or drink dirty water. Changing the water will take you all of three or four minutes and is worth the effort. The birds will thank you, too.
Having to live with problems in today's world--war in Europe and a lot of conflict between people in society--I would prescribe gardening for anyone who wants some inner peace and quiet. Go with your Inner Hermit, the eremite gardener, the almost-recluse, the walking in society but not of society... and a few birds along for the journey. Even a tiny garden, a few containers on a balcony, is escape from the world and an invitation to birds and insects to visit.
Yesterday morning, I saw a blue jay in the bird bath, an early morning visitor; perhaps some visitors don't want to make their presence known so they come and go at an early hour. Later yesterday I took these photographs of a robin in the bird bath, he knew I was there but stayed in the bird bath for about five minutes. Seeing birds, seeing birds in the bird bath, it gives a lot to life...
It was raining and this crow was sitting under the apple tree in our backyard keeping out of the rain. I know how he felt, I was just leaving for a walk and I was already wet. I had something in common with the crow.
A bird bath is a small purchase but it brings years of happiness. Birds love to sit in water, flutter their wings in water, and they'll line up and wait their turn to use a bird bath. The main thing for people to do is to change the water, keep the water fresh and clean in your bird bath and you'll have happy birds visiting your bird bath. But why do birds like to take a bath? I've tried to find out and, from what I've read, science hasn't really answered this question. There is one simple answer, it is that they are having fun, like people they like to cool down on a hot summer day, they like to be in water, it's just a fun thing to do. That's what I think but, of course, I could be wrong.
