They would have thought that I was a new visitor to the terrace, and they were right as I had no habit of spending time there. Doves and pigeons are actually a bunch of pleasant to watch birds, especially when the pack of them are on the floor and eating. I started giving them a bowl of rice to eat. After the initial few days, I noticed that the crows ate rice as well. I was annoyed a bit when the crows took the rice and pigeons had to stay away as they were afraid of crows. Anyway, that was not a serious problem as the crows didn’t take the whole rice. Hurrah! It was so relieving when I switched to wheat. Crows didn’t touch it at all.
I wonder whether there can be anyone who doesn’t love seeing squirrels when they eat something with their rounded back and the question mark like arched tail. Yeah, when I introduced wheat to pigeons, I found that few squirrels joined them. Squirrels are afraid of pigeons, so they ate the wheat that scattered around, a little away from the pigeons. I felt pity and since I loved both, I thought I should try something else for squirrels and wondered whether biscuits could be a better alternative. So, I kept few biscuits at the corner and waited for the squirrels to come. Alas, crows were too sharp to notice and took away the biscuits in no time.
Well, it was dates that gave me some relief. Pigeons didn’t eat dates and squirrels liked it. But that introduced another member to the fun club. It was a myna. I never thought myna’s love dates that much. I loved mynas’ presence. Since mynas needed only a few pieces, the remaining was good enough for the squirrels. Once again, crows were back in the picture. They didn’t touch dates when I was giving it to squirrels, but I felt that they had learned it from the mynas as they started taking them. The biggest problem was that the crows are brave and quick, and so they were the first one to reach when I kept something and squirrels were the last one to reach the spot.
All was not lost. I found that only squirrels eat popcorn seeds. So, I started keeping a few for them in one corner and they had no disturbance. However, it was only for a week as few pigeons started loving it. The only solution that I got was that I kept them in excess so that squirrels also get something. By the way, I needed some solution for the dates problem. I feel saddened when I saw a myna sitting on the wall and looking for it and I had nothing left with me. The trick I tried was to keep a few biscuits with me and throw it when the crow about taking the dates. Biscuits attracted them a lot and so distracted them from dates, temporarily. And that introduced someone I had never seen before. It is called rufous treepie. It would have come after seeing all these birds. It came and sat on the wall and made a loud noise, and it was happy to take a biscuit. Of course, now the villain crows were once again proved to be very quick.
I didn’t give up either. I found only the rufous treepie eats rusk. God knows why, at least I know God knows why. The mix of wheat, dates, popcorn seeds, biscuits, rusks and more importantly the timing to keep them is really a challenge. All along, I have been noticing that one crow, unlike others, is just sits and waits and picks whatever is remaining or just drinks water. On a closer look, I spotted that its one leg is broken. Now I understand that this crow is afraid (or rather it has to do it that way) of getting caught as he is not able to move swiftly. It cannot take off quickly as it is not able to push strongly with one leg. I think it knows its limitation and has to miss food because of it. I felt pity and special love for this crow. I started throwing biscuits closer to it, and I guess it is not afraid of my presence that much now. You may remember Dhanush’s movie dialogue, “Ennae maari pasangala paartha pudikkaathu, paakka paakka thaan pudikkum!”. Is it that one-legged crow or me who says that dialogue now is immaterial.
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