Consuelo's Crow

At the end of the summer of 2009, half a year after we moved to Dalston, Consuelo began to feed the local crow. She (Consuelo thought it a girl bird) lived in a tree opposite our balcony. Consuelo tried feeding it a few things, pan con tomate, jamon serrano, turon, empanadillas, paella, arroz Cubana but we finally realised that cat food chips were its favourite. It turned out that there were two crows, and now three. The latest edition is clearly the youngest, it has a high pitched caw. Only this afternoon I was sitting on the balcony sun bathing and the young crow started to caw incessantly from the Tall Tree in the Over-Grown Garden over the road, over the wall. It cawed non stop for half an hour until there was the sound of a branch breaking and all was silent.

After Consuelo left in the autumn of last year I kept up the routine. It got so that a crow would sit on the end of the balcony and call me demanding food, she would fly away while I put some out and return with friends to dine.

My neighbour in the penthouse flat wrote to me asking that I stopped feeding the birds as they were making a mess of his balcony and he was scared that one might swoop down and steal food from his plate whilst he ate outside (?) He also explained that the birds spread plant diseases (?)

In truth I had started putting out too much food, attracting starlings (which nest anywhere) and magpies and recently an aggressive seagull had been hanging around. I think that the seagull is to blame for the making a mess of my neighbour's balcony (and it might well steasl food from someone's plate). So I agreed that I would only feed our crows when winter returns, in moderation and only when she asks for food.

I hope that Consuelo's crow is happy to see her when she visits for a few days this week. I think that it might be the last time that we ever spend time together, although I hope not.

Crows are ever so clever. On Youtube you can watch crows in Japan who have learned to use cars to crack nuts on the road, beside zebra crossings for safety. When the green man flashes they walk out to snack.