I was sitting in my car at the station waiting for my friend's train to arrive. After sitting there a while I heard a train in the distance. A couple of crows sailed down and settled on an old cracked concrete foundation about five feet square, located about eight feet from the tracks. Then more and more crows arrived in an obvious state of excitement, jockeying and switching positions on the concrete. As I sat there I wondered what they were up to, and why all the fuss. At that moment a train screamed through at top speed without stopping, creating a gale-force wall of air blasting them up and away, flapping and tumbling helplessly.
I enjoyed that, but not half as much as the crows did, I bet.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Crows Teaching Young
The crows are teaching the young ones to find food for themselves, This has been going on for two weeks. The parent will pick up a largeish piece of food from the grass. The young one will then make starving sounds and hound the adult, running alongside and reaching for the food. The grown one will not let the young reach the food. After 15 seconds or so, the parent will drop the food in the grass and pound at it with his beak. Then he will pick up one of the larger pieces he has broken off and keep up the appearance of hunting in the immediate area for more pieces. At first the young one will keep up the begging, but at some point he will look down, and almost surely, after a few glances, he will see the broken pieces of food and pick one up, ending the lesson for the day.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Great Rat
A white rat lived with us for a while. Our lease was up and our dog had died, so we decided to leave Lexington. We stopped in to look in at a pet shop on our way out of town, and I bought a baby rat. We spent that summer traveling in the van. When we stopped at motels we would sneak him in and out wrapped in a shirt or towel.
When fall came we rented a house on Long Island. One day I saw Ratty closing a door by running back and forth and leaning against it. I told him I thought it was a good way to close a door, and he stopped and fixed his eye on me. His mind was fast. So he looked at me for a second and made some fast calculations and then he walked slowly along the door without taking his eye off of me, to let me know that he understood what I had said. I'm slow, but I knew what he was doing, so I waited a few minutes and then I asked him to close the door again, and he ran right over and did it.
When he was a baby we would tell him not to bite people. That was the extent of his formal training, and he learned it well. If we would try to thwart him when he was doing something particularly interesting to him, his only and very effective defense was to squeak loudly and hop in place. One evening Will was sprawled on a couch on the front porch with a beer and a magazine, and Ratty and I were in the kitchen at the back of the house. Will yelled out something or other to me. I can't remember what it was, but I didn't like it. The only answer I could think of that wouldn't lead to an argument was "Ratty, go bite Will." Damned if that little thing didn't run along the baseboards and jump down the step onto the porch and draw blood on his big toe. Will didn't appreciate it.
The house had a heat register that was an iron grate flush with the floor. I was afraid he would fall into it, so I would pick him up when he went near it, and tell him to stay away from it. I guess he thought that was great, because every time I'd say "Stay away from there", no matter where he was, He'd run up to the edge of the register and look down into it.
He died when he was about two years old. I had a dream a few months after that. In this dream my ex-father-in-law, a doctor, was watching, amazed, as Ratty did some stuff to show him what he knew. The doctor used his best deep voice to call his wife: "Millie, Millie, come here and see what this rat can do." Ratty froze, looked him in the eye, and said "Of course I can, I'm a scientific rat."
He was as sharp as a tack.
When fall came we rented a house on Long Island. One day I saw Ratty closing a door by running back and forth and leaning against it. I told him I thought it was a good way to close a door, and he stopped and fixed his eye on me. His mind was fast. So he looked at me for a second and made some fast calculations and then he walked slowly along the door without taking his eye off of me, to let me know that he understood what I had said. I'm slow, but I knew what he was doing, so I waited a few minutes and then I asked him to close the door again, and he ran right over and did it.
When he was a baby we would tell him not to bite people. That was the extent of his formal training, and he learned it well. If we would try to thwart him when he was doing something particularly interesting to him, his only and very effective defense was to squeak loudly and hop in place. One evening Will was sprawled on a couch on the front porch with a beer and a magazine, and Ratty and I were in the kitchen at the back of the house. Will yelled out something or other to me. I can't remember what it was, but I didn't like it. The only answer I could think of that wouldn't lead to an argument was "Ratty, go bite Will." Damned if that little thing didn't run along the baseboards and jump down the step onto the porch and draw blood on his big toe. Will didn't appreciate it.
The house had a heat register that was an iron grate flush with the floor. I was afraid he would fall into it, so I would pick him up when he went near it, and tell him to stay away from it. I guess he thought that was great, because every time I'd say "Stay away from there", no matter where he was, He'd run up to the edge of the register and look down into it.
He died when he was about two years old. I had a dream a few months after that. In this dream my ex-father-in-law, a doctor, was watching, amazed, as Ratty did some stuff to show him what he knew. The doctor used his best deep voice to call his wife: "Millie, Millie, come here and see what this rat can do." Ratty froze, looked him in the eye, and said "Of course I can, I'm a scientific rat."
He was as sharp as a tack.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
