We had a backyard drama yesterday.  I came home from the grocery store and David said he saw a crow running down the fence line and go behind our wheelbarrow.

This is troubling because crows are not land birds.  They do not stay on the ground unless they have to.  Another odd thing about this one was how she (he) ran instead of using the usual crow hopping move.

Of course Crow Stalker had to go see what happened to this bird.  I went to the corner of our yard where the wheelbarrow is standing up against the fence along with some concrete blocks and an extra plastic garbage can. There behind the can was this smaller crow.  As I tried to get a good look at her she would hide behind the wheelbarrow or the bushes. A crow that is running must have a problem with it’s wings.  Best I could tell from my limited view of her was one of her wings was hanging slightly low.

I went inside and we had that tough conversation about what to do. We had three basic choices.  First, continue what we were doing which was to watch out for her and give her some peanuts and cat food.  Or we could call PAWS and send her up north to an injured crow place.  This was dismissed right away due to the distance to get to PAWS and how we had heard they euthanize them frequently.  Lastly, we could do what we did when we raised our baby crow in 2006.  We could put her into a bin with a light and bedding in our shed. That is a long term commitment that we decided wasn’t in the cards this time.

As we debated the options I noticed several crows roosting close by.  They knew she was there and were guarding and watching out for her.  We did the same and chased off a black and white cat.  When that happened she moved to another spot in our yard.  This was in a cubby hole between the fences in the neighborhood.  It is next to a narrow walkway on the side of our house with a locked gate to the front the yard.

After the cat was chased away David went to check on her again and she was trying to get to the front yard.  Another discussion started on if we should let her out of the relative safety of the back yard or was the yard a death trap for her.  We decided to open the gate when we saw her family of crows land in the front grass.

Next thing I know, she is out in the yard hopping and running along getting a snack in the grass.  Such normal crow behavior.  She still couldn’t fly but seemed to be out of shock and wasn’t hiding.

Last I saw of her was she was walking down the sidewalk and green strip next to the street headed north to 108th.  Crow Running had decided to walk home.   Hope she made it OK.