In My Neighborhood

The crows are quiet today. I'm guessing by their silence and what I see on the sidewalk below there's a baby up in that old juniper.

Yesterday, and every other day, the crows were hollering, putting the fear of crow into every living thing nearby, one crow on the very top of a pine tree around the corner, loudly announcing, "This place is mine. Stay back."

They try to put the fear into me if I step outside. It works. I picture a big crow swooping down to peck my head, send me running back into the house. It has been done before by those pesky 

red-wing black birds. This year we in this neighborhood have a bunch of crows, a gang, and you know what happens with gangs. They grow bolder by the day. One hard peck from a crow I'd remember a long time.

The juniper hangs over the fence into my yard. I wonder if the crows think I come out to do them harm, and I might say I would but that is not true, even if I could. I'd like to shoo them away . . .

but I don't fly and my shouts pose no threat. Years ago I would throw a rock up into the tree, just to frighten them. Fat chance. And I can't get a rock very high these days.

I heard a robin chirping for nearly an hour last evening, saw him in the neighbor's ash tree, excited, worried, calling out a warning: Crow is near, beware.

Today in my driveway I saw a feather torn by violence from some smaller bird's baby. I do not know for sure if it's a robin.