A Blue-eyed Crow And Spotted Fawns

It is such a pleasure to spend time in the shade garden on a hot day.  I saw several crows fly out of the garden as I approached.  They made a very noisy departure.  Ed arrived shortly after I did.  One bird remained in the garden.  We decided to stay, mind our own business, and ignore the bird.  Ed did well with that.  He chose a spot to weed on the other side of the garden.  I did that too but I faced where the bird was so I could watch it.  It was obvious to me that for whatever reason the bird could not fly.  When I took a break and sat on the bench to drink some water I took a picture of the crow.  We try to stick to a let the wildlife be wildlife policy here.  I tried but  just had to get a closer look.  

The bird turned out to be a baby crow.   It had a short tail,  blue eyes and  prominent mouth markings.  Right after I took the picture, the crow hopped  to get away from me and bumped into a cage over where Ed was working.  To get away from Ed the bird hopped into a patch of nettles and across some bags of leaves. Once out in the short grass the bird hopped some and walked some.  Once the bird was out in the open, the crows in the pines made all kinds of  unusual  sounds.  The baby crow seemed to change direction in response.   When the baby reached the gravel lane one large black crow flew into a big pine tree across the road from us.  That baby bird hopped and walked straight down the lane, but when it got to the road it stopped.   I didn't stop think about it.  I purposely frightened that baby bird into making a fast trip across the road.  Given the proper motivation he could hop pretty fast.  We were all happy when the baby bird disappeared beneath the tree where Mom was waiting!

After making our home here in  close proximity to the deer population for more than 20 years, we really have to work at it to get  them to keep their distance.  They are somewhat afraid of Ed, but usually pay no attention to me.  Don't get me wrong.   I love watching them from the living room window.  This year we have a doe with twins and another with one a rather small baby who never seems to be far away from the garden.  They are comfortable to nurse while we are watching and regularly bring the fawns to romp, play and practice running very fast on the short grass. The doe with a single fawn seems to leave it close to us for safekeeping. A couple of weeks ago Ed snapped its picture over by his garden shed.  This time the fawn was hidden among  weeds right in the garden.  I did not even see the animal until I was just a few feet away.  Older now the fawn got up and ran away.  All this is wonderful fun but we are experiencing drought conditions.  Deer eating my favorite plants, even pretty little fawns, does not make me happy.

Imagine my horror when I discovered that I forgot to replace the cage on the lettuce bed  after I had picked lettuce in the morning.  Little deer footprints were everywhere. We replaced the cage and Ed watered.  Locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen is seldom effective  At least one lettuce plant is still unmolested.  It is that spot of red just behind my shadow's  shoulder.  It came up by itself from last year's seed.  It's a lucky thing that Ed did not transplant it into the bed with the others.  What our lettuce and the garden needs now is rain.  Maybe those spotted fawns are not all that cute.