The Hadedas are coming, the Hadedas are coming

Today as I was driving home, I saw a crow on the road, and I immediately thought of that Gary Larson cartoon that show the “secret tools of crows” and shows them using ketchup for the road kill that is already a bit too stinky and needs a little help in the flavour department. I love Gary Larson. I think he is one of the unrecognised geniuses (or should that be genii??) of our time. Him, and the creator of Calvin and Hobbs, but I digress…

Then I got to remembering the pet crow we once had. He looked very similar, also a pied crow, alike in height, and markings. The crow we had came to us when he was very little, and was the cutest thing you have ever seen.

Like all small children do, my brother have him a truly unique name: “Crow”. He used to come to my brother when he called him, and would say his name a lot. Some days I still think my brother is really an animal whisperer…

We had to feed him three times a day, and make sure that his cage was clean. This, at any rate was not a problem. Baby crows are born with some collective knowledge - somehow knowing that they should aim and squirt any bodily functions OUTSIDE the cage as far as possible. I am not joking.

As I remember, my Mother was away during that period, and my Dad just put sheets over everything in the room and closed the door. I guess he figured that we could clean it all up at the end… You cannot believe the mess it made.

We used to teach the crow to talk to us, and always called it for food by saying “meeeeeat, meeeeeeat”. Not unexpectedly, it used to say “meeat” when it was hungry. Ha ha.

Did you know that crows are like magpies? They will steal anything shiny that you leave lying around, such as your watch, or earrings, or necklace that you take off and leave on the ground by your towel when you go swimming… Our crow had several hidey holes that we used to have to hunt for to reclaim our treasure. For years after the crow went to the big hunting ground in the sky, we used to find lost items. There may be some still hiding…

There are no crows directly near where I live, but unfortunately I have heard one or two Hadedas… One of the things I was glad about when moving into the neighbourhood, was that despite a large variety of wildlife and birdlife, there were ABSOLUTELY NO HADEDAS. Now the silly beggars wake me up at stupid o’clock. And where there is one, more always follow…

Are there humane ways to encourage them to go elsewhere? Anyone? …