Crying for a Crow

This morning I did the usual circuit of the garden before going out across the fields with the dogs and as I passed Merlina’s aviary I did a double take. No ‘caw caw caw’. I stopped and looked in disbelief at the little sanctuary I had created for her. Empty. With a growing sense of horror I went in and found a hole right in the corner – a fox had got in, I’m sure. But there was no sign of a struggle and we heard nothing in the night and she is usually VERY vociferous if anything unknown approaches her house.

I blubbed like a baby. I saved her life three years ago when the dogs found her in the field dragging a broken wing. She went off to LIPU (equivalent of NSPB) to have an operation to amputate the wing and then she was mine again as she couldn’t be set free. I built her a shelter and took great delight in spending time with this beautiful and intelligent creaure. She began cawing as I passed or whenever we went out. She did cute thngs with her food, hiding it in odd places. She lined up twigs or beads or cones in patterns and watched with keen interest whenever the dogs and I were in the garden.

I often felt she was lonely but I never found another crow to put in with her. I felt so sorry she couldn’t fly and wondered what she must be thinking as her fellow hooded crows soared above her in the sky cawing down at her. But she hopped around and although she quite often plummeted to the ground from one of the intricate arrangement of branches I set up from her she would always pick herself up again and clamber back up.

And now she’s gone. I miss her caws punctuating the day and I miss her. I am clinging on to the hope that maybe the dogs made the little hole in the aviary and then she hopped out of it and is somewhere in the garden.But I know that is a vain hope.

All I wish is that maybe, somewhere, Merlina is flying again.