It has been a surprisingly happy birthday.
I didn’t really have any expectations for it, because its organised highlight was going to be taking Number Three Daughter to Ulverston. She was having her brain examined, which has led to the usual round of predictable humour from the rest of us. Number Two Daughter told her that they would squirt purple dye in her ears so that they could see if her brain bobbed about in it, but they didn’t.
She arrived not long after Mark had gone to work, and we all had coffee in our garden tent, which is still there. This had provided me with an unexpected Domestic Challenge this morning, because it was my day for washing the sheets. There was not very much space left on the washing line that was not occupied with tent, and all of the clothes pegs were in use. Hence by the middle of the afternoon the inside of the tent, where it was pegged to the washing line, was decorated with rows of hanging knickers and socks and dishcloths. I rather liked this, it added a certain domestic atmosphere.
The consensus for birthday presents seemed to be that bottles of wine would be a good idea, with which I agreed enthusiastically, and Number Three Daughter and her boyfriend clubbed together to send us on a Spa Treatment with Afternoon Tea. I am very excited about this, and would have gone already if I hadn’t been busy pegging washing out.
We were halfway to Ulverston when a kerfuffle at the side of the road caught my attention, and I stood on the brakes.
It was a bird, flapping about frantically. I thought that it had been hit by a car, and was steeling myself to break its neck quickly, until I realised that actually it seemed to be intact.
I picked it up and brought it back to the car.
It was a fledgeling crow, still fluffy, with its wing and tail feathers almost grown and a colossal beak and feet, also, as we discovered quite quickly, an impressive collection of lice.
It was terribly distressed, panting and flapping, but did not seem to be suffering from any other serious damage, so we wrapped it in a handy tea towel and kept it.
The doctor told Number Three Daughter that her brain seemed to be working reasonably well, and he didn’t even need any purple dye. Modern medicine is a marvellous thing.
Mark had a look at the crow when he got home.
It is not the midnight black that you would expect from a carrion crow. Its wings and tail feathers are smeared with whitish patches here and there, discoloured and odd-looking.
Mark said that in hard times, such as hot droughts, birds do sometimes shove the least-likely-to-succeed baby out of the nest, because if you are struggling then it makes economical sense to concentrate your efforts on the pretty ones who are most likely to carry on your gene pool.
This is not good news for an ugly crow.
I fed it.
It is very young indeed.
It doesn’t seem able to peck at things, but opens its beak and waits for me to drop things into its mouth. I have got to put my finger into its beak and poke them over its tongue.
Several times it just closed its beak on my finger and held on to it. When I tried to take my finger away it tightened its grip, so I left my finger there and waited until it became relaxed and dozy. I wonder if birds find this sort of thing comforting, like human babies. I suppose there is not reason why not.
It has eaten some raw chicken, some chocolate biscuit, some cooked chicken and half a strawberry, and it is asleep in the washing basket.
I hope that it doesn’t die, although I know its chances are not brilliant.
We shall do something about the lice tomorrow.
