Meet Freddy!

     Hello again, my folks! My apologies that I'm so sporadic with these entries. This time, I don't even have a good excuse, I've just been down in the dumps. I shouldn't be: I'm starting to get my health back, inasmuch as that will prove to be possible, and thus should be cheery as anything. Please consult my essay on happiness ("Somewhere Over the Rainbow Is the Big Rock Candy Mountain") for why things don't really work out that way, and why that's okay. I'm rallying, though. I always do. Improving my health will remove — has removed — a lot of my pain, and therefore distraction, but not the obstacles nor the burdens; I just need to lift my focus from the path and back toward the future itself. Despite how it sounds, despite me having the gloomies, I am immensely grateful (to…? Fate? Circumstance? I dunno, it's a phrase...) that I will now be able not only to increasingly deal with and take on these hurdles, but also to expand my world again toward some measure of what it once was: although my beloved hard physical labor is behind me now, soon enough, relatively speaking, I'll be able to get out and about more. Moving my body through nature in a vigorous manner has always helped me heal and feel better.

of the ones who knew me well enough to be comfortable around me, land near me, follow me around, and not be too jumpy if I looked their way. I love them all, the "friendlier" ones and those which treat me as an alien, potentially dangerous, food dispenser alike, but just as with "my" crows, some are particularly special to me. Freddy was definitely one of these already even though I don't know which one he was. Prior to the events of April, he looked exactly like the rest of them, didn't distinguish himself behaviorally in any truly unique way (like old Hopalong, for example), and so on, but I could tell whenever he came by that he was one of the smart ones, and additionally one of the ones able to see me as an individual person-type being, even a peripheral flock member. He must be the one I'd already identified as "goofy", because goofy he is, in a way not exhibited by the others (just like with cats, foxes, dolphins, or anything else that plays in a way we can understand, goofy is as goofy does and each goof's goofiness is unique. Otherwise we wouldn't call it goofiness. Take it from an inveterate goof.

     Before I describe the events of 16 months ago I want to warn you that it's graphic, including the photos. I also want to assure you, like my grandmother did when we got to that one chapter of "My Friend Flicka", that it all turned out okay in the end.
     I was on my way home from somewhere, probably the disability doctor who put the final nails into the coffin of what used to be my mental health, in the middle of an epic downpour. There was little wind, but the rain was coming down biblically, huge pounding drops soaking everything they touched instantly, nearly bruising the top of my head, running into my eyes, tearing leaves from trees. At that time there was a thick decorative hedge on the tiny shred of lawn outside the neighbor's houses down the street, and out of the corner of my eye, as I passed, I glimpsed movement under there. Crouching down, I peered into the gloom, and deep among the gnarled and crowded centimeters-thick stems, I saw a jackdaw huddled into itself, its face covered in terrible wounds. Based on the extent and general shape of the damage, it's my opinion that it was an attack by a bird of prey; we have sparrowhawks and buzzards, ospreys and owls, red shouldered hawks, that kind of thing.

back with a big pile of cat food. I reached in and put it as close to him as I could reach before he pulled back a little and I left it there. Every 15 minutes or so I snuck out into the deluge to make sure he was still alive and unmolested by cats, dogs, or anything else. I saw that he was eating the food and I was glad.
     When the storm stopped, when the sun came out, I rushed out there and I saw, to my delight, that he had been able to make it into the lower branches of a small tree. A bird that can fly has a far greater chance of survival than one that cannot (obviously not including naturally flightless birds, you know what I mean). I put some more food at the base of the tree and backed away to the corner, and was deeply gratified to watch his mate (whose name these days, now that I can tell her from the rest, is Forky, not because of the videogame but because for all of last year her tail was forked (it isn't anymore, I can only identify her by behavior now)) appear immediately to gather it up and bring it to him.

again grow feathers. His lower beak had even been sheared straight through! In this I was, however, completely wrong: observe this series of pictures showing his initial healing. Nowadays, it's hard to see the scars unless you know what you're looking for — except of course during molting time.
     Emotionally, from that point on, we've been best friends. I can't touch him — he's still a wild bird, of course — but he and Forky walk beside me on the street, sit a meter or so from me if I'm reading in the garden, and in general obviously just enjoy my company. I make them feel safe, too; they've seen me chase cats away, and they know I'm deeply observant, always following everything with all three of my eyes (the two in my head and the one on the end of the black thing I carry around) and have their best interests in mind. It took Forky a very short time to reconcile herself to her guy's new best bud and recognize me as a source of food, an excellent alternative lookout, and possibly a nice person. She's the one who has taken to hanging out on the kitchen door when I have it open, fluffed up comfortably and watching me through the living room window. She's also the one, judging from her behavior, who will probably come into the house sometime (hilarious as that would be, I don't want them to do that; again, they need to stay wild, and also they're jackdaws and will thus steal and vandalize anything they can get their cute horny little beaks onto).

     As far as Freddy and Forky are concerned, I, my husband, and my daughter are fine, safe people, and definitely friends of theirs. They're the ones who come by regardless of the presence of food, who choose near me as the best spot for some nice preening in the sun, who know me as myself and not just as a hulking two-legged lunch counter.
Last spring, Freddy and Forky had four babies. Now, jackdaws normally lay more eggs than that, and rarely raise more than two of them. They are notoriously lackadaisical about parenting. To have four healthy, strong, smart children make it all the way through the first winter is astonishing, but if anybody could do it would be Freddy and Forky! These four became known to me as the Little Angels because of the way they all flew up at once together, matching each other's movements, which reminded me of a song my grandfather used to sing:

     Although this year the Little Angels have for the most part blended into the wash of "my" clattering (the collective term for jackdaws), I can tell two of them from the others, one by behavior and one by look. Their names are Chatterbox (never shuts up) and Bendy (not for the videogame; this is one gymnastic bird). 

     This year, thanks to the sheer numbers of these guys (at least twenty come by the garden at one time or another, and up to sixty follow me around outside — luckily very rarely all at once) and their sporadic ways of showing up in random groups, I don't even know how many babies Freddy and Forky had but it's at least two, and I think it's three. One of them distinguished itself – I think himself, but it's really hard to tell — not only by being extremely intelligent and personable, brash and goofy, interested in me and my doings, just like Freddy and Forky, but also by embodying a physical anomaly I've only seen once before a few years ago in another baby bird.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Freaky/Normy.

     That's it, really; that's Freddy's whole story so far. I'm sorry to say he hasn't escaped as unscathed as he looks: he seems to be sore in the leg or the hip, possibly the ribs, and prefers to settle down as though perching for the night instead of standing around. I can see him favor that leg sometimes. I fret. Again, I don't know how old he is; their average life span in the wild is five years and in captivity has reached twenty. I know he was an adult and already mated, so at least two years old as it usually goes, sixteen months ago at the time of these events, but he could be three or he could be eight for all I know. I hope is young; I hope to have him, and his family, around for a long time to come.