Is Fig Unique?

I imagine many people have raised baby crows that were found on the ground fledging, injured in traffic, or orphaned. And I imagine in a majority of cases, those Crows that successfully grew up, maybe hung around for a few years with their adoptive human families before becoming sexually mature, then flew away to find a mate and live a Crow's life. I have to imagine that the number of permanently disabled Crows living with human families is pretty small, because most injuries would lead to death, or euthanasia at the hands of a vet or professional rehab center which would not usually raise a non-releasable bird, if they want to keep their license. And a vast majority of people want nothing to do with a Crow,  especially an injured one. So, I suspect Fig represents a very small number of Crows who permanently reside with humans, and will do so long term.

Going a step further, Fig lives "outside" for several hours per day in her home territory, and during this time she chats with her biological mother, father and siblings from morning until night. She has done so over the last three years, and they teach her the latest seasonal catch-phrase full volume calls, as well as intimate quiet gurglings. In other words, Fig has had the opportunity to reach sexual maturity now, to fully grow up, learning and using her native language, with her biological family. I have to suspect that this set of circumstances is extremely rare, possibly unique.

Fig is a bird that fledged. She was raised by, and imprinted on wild birds. The last three years taming her has been a very long, slow process of encouragement as a result. And Fig has mainly dictated the pace of her integration. She remains very much a wild bird, but she is now very comfortable living with a human family, with a predator cat, but it has taken the full three years of incrementally developing a relationship with her, in addition to her incrementally willing her own self out of her wild shell on her own terms. On top of this challenge to suddenly integrate into a human world, Fig has had to grow up, and mature and her dependence has stunted, and warped that process. That is a lot to psychologically bear for anyone, but for a disabled, captive Crow living everyday with her real family just outside, I cannot imagine. Fig is an inspiringly strong person. She is my hero in much the same way that my son is my hero for his endurance, tolerance, and perseverences.

Recent developments are that Fig ventures more and more into common spaces, voluntarily, to explore, or seeking to socialize with us, and the cat even. Fig enjoys sitting with us at meals, during dish washing, and to watch TV, or especially to listen to music. She likes to watch a game of Chess from a shoulder, or while cuddling in a lap. Yet, she retains a highly independent side. She is still quite shy. She still prefers to be in her own space most of the time, but the balance of time towards social interaction is quickly shifting at an accelerating rate. This is great for her, but more and more demanding on me because initially she wants to socialize as a pair. I suspect in another year or two she will shift more towards socializing on her own terms, independently.

Fig is fully capable of deciding when and if she wants to socialize, and she is capable and confident enough to object if pushed. If really pushed, she can really object. You can have a very loud argument with her if you like. She will hold that perch like it's a steak dinner, growl, and bite if she does not want to be moved. But I NEVER move her forcefully, against her will. I ALWAYS respect her decision. She knows that I respect her, so if I let her bite me, it's a play bite much like your dog will do. It doesn't hurt, because she knows I'm going to relent. She knows I will let her have her way. And the second I relent, she fluffs up and I give her pets and kisses. She is earnestly saying NO, it is serious communication, and I have to listen, but she also knows that the argument is largely fictitious. I don't make a habit of arguing with Fig, but sometimes we do play argue for fun, or really argue if I need to move her and she is not inclined to cooperate right away; either way, if the argument is play, or me really asking for a bit of cooperation, it is rewarding to see how fast she instantly switches from growling to nuzzling my face. I think anyone watching would be very concerned that Fig would peck my eyes out, but her personality is as soft as a lamb, because she knows mine is as well. I am sure if I was an asshole she would maim me to the best of her abilities. She's no jerk either. She often capitulates when I suspect she would maybe rather stay put. So, in those cases I reward her with praise, or let her have her perch a while longer. But she does try to please by doing what is asked of her, so I have to be sensitive to her true feelings.

I think it is important to argue with a Crow, however, sometimes. It gives Fig confidence in herself, in me, and us. You have to have a real, full set of working emotions in any relationship. I often see wild Crows arguing. And quite often those arguments do turn temporarily physical. I have the ability to gauge the true ferocity of a Crow fight. But I NEVER get physical with Fig if we argue, I always let her win, and we always switch to kisses and nuzzles immediately after, so she consequently has tremendous confidence about objecting when she wants to stay put. I simply revisit her a few minutes later, and the chances are really good that she has completely switched her mind, in large part, I am sure, because she loves to please, just as with human kids. Kids don't want to make parents upset, so the next thing you know...Look Mom, I cleaned my room! Fig is the same. Look Dad, this time I'm coming with you!!! She loves to make me happy, because we share the joy.

Anyway, I digress...

The point I was making, is that Fig is unique, she must be, almost. I doubt there are many Crows who live with humans, yet socialize with their biological family. This makes Fig very special. It means she is bicultural, and bilingual. It means that she is an authentic Crow, who can teach us a tremendous amount especially about the complex language of Jungle Crows.

This is the challenge for me. I really want to capture, and catalog the language Fig uses. But the problem with describing this, or any language is that it often is unique to a small subset of users, in this cases, pretty much just two individuals.  If you think about any language, or let's say a language class, you don't usually get to learn things such as the words "uh huh, yeah, umm..." and thousands of other examples. You only learn these things when you get off the boat in another culture, and suddenly the clear and carefully iterated Ko-ni-chi-wa you learned for hello in Japanese class, hits your ears as chiwa. And then there is every possible musical variation once attitude, tone, pitch, modulation, repetition, stutter, stall, emphasis, timing of syllables is all factored in.

The fact is, speech and language ARE musical. They are Opera. They are Hip Hop. They are Country Drawl. So one can never ever nail it down with words. Language is a slippery, slimy, living creature that evades capture but for fleeting moments, holding still only long enough to allow one to jot a few feeble, hopelessly inadequate descriptions in one's biology notebook.

I guess that is really what I want to say about Crow language, what I have realized after three years of listening to it daily, now. Crows use language. They use words. And they use musical possibilities in just the same way humans do, to enrich their vocal expressions, which express amazingly concise, and subtle nuances...their feelings, moods, and goings ons.

As I read over what I write, it all reads very much like I am listening to my inner cat lady rambling on about her cat's communications. Yes, we ought very carefully to listen to our cats too. Hmm. 

Notes on Memory and Communication

Three years in to caring for Fig, life is still full of surprises.

A tale of memory...

So recently Fig insists on washing the dishes together. She sits on my shoulder, chatters and begs for hugs, by which I mean she tugs my hair, then when I turn to look at her, she rotates her head and leans into me which means she wants to touch foreheads, and feel the heat of my breath, and skin against her feathery head. I can look directly into her upturned eye as if she's a whale turned on its side in the open sea, and she peers lovingly at me through her white nictating eyelid winking, and blinking adoringly. A forehead hug, nose nuzzling, hot breath in feathers affectionate romantic interaction like this can go on for sometime, so I have to keep reheating the dish water.

Anyway, I was washing the colorful plastic cutlery my son has now outgrown but still likes to use, and I was showing them to Fig, trying to recall the words/syllables I had assigned to the 13 colors I had taught Fig three years ago. Fig do you remember this color, I said, Ao, that's blue. She cocked her head as if to say, okay. And this one is green, what was that, oh yeah Do! I got through four colors, and could see she was paying attention. But I was now out of plastic spoons, and down to regular cutlery. I lifted up a silver spoon. What color Figgy? I had totally forgotten what I had used for Silver. Arrrr she said, dragging out the rrrrr like a pirate. Indeed that was correct. She had remembered the color for silver from two years back. I was quite surprised and impressed. My son heard her say it too, and he instantly recalled that she had learned colors, and he insisted I get down Figs box and give him the color swatches so he could practice the colors with her. What a wonderful son I have.

A tale of communication...

Crow communication is complex. But more than that, it is different. I have not proven to be a great learner of the Japanese language. My main weakness is listening. I can prattle away about my own thoughts well enough, but listening to others, a radio, or a TV is much, much harder. It is no different listening to a Crow, but the main difference here, is that I am the only person I know who is learning the language, so that being the case, I listen harder. Maybe I like animals more than people. Certainly, I empathize with animals more easily, and a big reason for that is their lack of voice in a remarkably unempathetic, human world.

I used to write things down. I used to record contexts, and details. But now, I realize that doing all that is rather more distracting than it is worthwhile. So now, I just really listen when Fig talks, and almost every time she talks, and I really, really listen hard. You have to. There are subtleties going on, but there is also a biologically different mechanism functioning. The voice, and the ears of an animal are a set. To a certain, perhaps large extent, the ears of a being are designed to listen to the voice of that particular being. I suppose that makes some sort of sense, but it is not necessarily an intuitive observation. One sort of assumes one can hear just about everything, but this really is not the case. One only realizes this sort of thing after hours, weeks, months, and perhaps years of listening to an animal speak, and realizing that one is still standing there shaking one's head, saying to one's disappointed self, and said animal, nope, I still did not manage to quite catch that sound, or a glimmer of meaning, pardon me, could you kindly repeat that, please. But as I have stated, I am not really a fantastic natural listener. I have gotten better though.

There is a certain amount of learning that goes on by osmosis in regards to listening, to be sure. Giving up has its merits, almost as much as deciding to try really damn hard. I have tried both. But to be honest, with Fig, because I am the only one in her life who she really needs to have understand her, 98 percent of my approach has been along the listen really, really damn hard route. I wish I could say the same for my Japanese.

Anyway, I have figured out a few general things. First, Crows use a small vocabulary of words, such as water, food, friend, enemy. Second, they use those words to create a far greater variety of meanings than the sum of the words alone, and they do this by using repetition, emphasis, tone, pitch, modulation, and most subtly by changing the ending, very similarly to the way humans change meanings by conjugation of verbs, for example.

I do not want to write a long dissertation on Crow communication at this time. I only wanted to write a general description to give some idea of my understanding of what is going on because recently Fig gave me one illustrative example which struck a chord in my rather hard, old, frontal lobe:

I had gotten busy, and Fig was in the bathroom. She had been behaving well, and was quietly grooming, but I knew she must be getting ready for some attention.  Sure enough she started yanking away at her perch cover; this is her way of saying, Hey, hey buddy! Come and show a lonely Crow some love!!!! Well, I was pretty busy, and admittedly, I ignored her much more than usual. Eventually, she settled back down, but she was not preening or occupying herself, so I could tell a storm was brewing. Then I added the straw that broke the camel's back. I started washing the dishes. Well, that was just too much for Fig. She knows that I know, that I know that she knows that washing the dishes is something that she and I do together. She wasn't having it. She launched into a loud vocal scold which hit home. It was a scold that I may have heard before, but probably quite rarely because honestly, I pay Fig extremely devoted attention most of the time, so she would have very rare occasion to use this language.

What she did is she screamed the word friend. I cannot reproduce how she said it here, in words alone. I can only describe it. If you say the word friend with the usual tone, attitude, and pitch and volume that you might usually scream the word, ASSHOLE, that will give you some idea. The effect was that she was saying, You are supposed to be my friend! In English, if you are really pissed off, you might drop the end of a word, as in, Assho-, if you really say it fast, well that too is also what Fig did with the word friend, as in Fren-. I am certain that she was being sincere and direct about her feelings, but was she was employing sarcasm within her language? I certainly felt that was the case.

I am not sure why, but this was a mini-cathartic moment in understanding Crow communication for me, particularly because I realized that I really have to fill in, or listen for subtle ending changes on words.

The word for friend in Fig's language is Ha-oh, or How.  So, if you drop the oh off, it just sounds like Ha which is a totally different word, and meaning depending on several ways that it might be said.

Anyway, this moment in particular solidified my listening approach with Crows. First and foremost, I try to accurately pin down the word being used. Secondly, I listen for the emotion. Is it cheer, excitement, worry, surprise, annoyance, anger? Crows spend a lot of time nagging one another. And they have incredible teamwork, and expectation of replies when they communicate. More and more I feel as though they communicate much like a human mother and child, only in the case of the Crows, the children roam more widely and freely, perhaps because they are much more willing to answer back when nagged, and not just to mother, but to whom so ever happens to be part of their perimeter. I have to wonder why Crows are so good at the "answering back" while humans, especially human children, seem so infuriatingly poor at it. Perhaps it is the way human children keep their parents close. And perhaps Crows are good at two way communication because that works better for groups. Anyway, Crows spend a lot of time nagging each other, and so they inevitably find themselves using an annoyed tone of voice quite a lot, just as humans do, especially if no one answers their calls when they ought to. Thirdly, I listen to the pitch, volume, and repetition because this tells me who they are talking to, far or near, what they are talking about, something immediate, or abstract.

So once again...
1. What is the word?
2. What is the emotion?
3. What is the emphasis(es)?
Listening in this way has greatly helped me to understand exactly what Fig is saying and to whom much more of the time.

To give one more example:
Ah is used to say hello.
Hello, is flat. Ah. (Ah, you're home.)
I am here, goes up. Like if you say, Hi! (directing attention here, more at oneself)
I see you, goes down. Like if you say, Hey! (talking about there)
I love you (aka I'm so happy to see you.), is drawn out in a croony song. Ah-ah-ah-ah (I missed you so-oo-ooh much!)
Same word, same general meaning "hello", different stress, pitch, repetition, therefore expresses a variety of emotions, frames the subject, suits the context.
It is very similar to human language communication in all of it's minute subtleties. Yes, yes, I realize that I started out by saying it was different, well mainly I had meant about the physical, mechanical apparatuses of the vocal chords, and the ears, in my defense.

It is a lot of fun, listening to an animal which is so willing to speak to you in it's own language, and doesn't mind trying a bit of yours as well. It is humbling. I suspect I will never be truly fluent in Japanese or Crow, not like I am in English. But trying has made me a better listener. That is quite a gift.  There is something perhaps about our first language which can never be replaced, or duplicated equally, and I suspect the reason for that is because our need to express our emotions satisfactorily is so deep, and utterly tied to our very first words, and contextual experiences. How can one rewrite such defining memories? One can't. Neither I, nor the Crow can anyway. But we have come a long way, and I believe we have a long way still to go.

Jail Break

As I stated in my last post, I was planning to replace the flimsy material that has fenced Fig in, or rather fenced her siblings out, as come March, the males in her family can become intensely, aggressively territorial. Fig's dad and his chosen right hand man patrol their breeding grounds with impressive ferocity, as Fig and I found out two years ago when they violently attacked her by surprise while Fig played in the tree by our building, and chatted to me in English. I will never ever forget that incredible spectacle, and the intense 20minute confrontation she and I weathered before she finally managed to leap safely back into my arms; it was as impressive as watching, and listening to wild tigers having a brawl with deafening, blood curdling, life and death growls, and roars one usually does not get to witness or hear; very impressive; unforgettable, raw nature at it's best. It is the kind of shocking spectacle that makes one automatically call out with one's voice in such a primal, instinctive, defensive manner, that one feels very much like a wild monkey, more than a man. Anyway, I digress....

So I had not done the fence, yet. I suppose I had been waiting for February to have her last good frost. And a few days back, I come home in the late afternoon to find Fig peering out of a 40cm wide hole in her fence. Her mother had come and eaten a hole in Fig's fence in an attempt to jail break her. Claw marks were all over the outside of Fig's roof, but the hole was in the side of the fence just above Fig's favorite place to sit. I know it was Mom because she is the only one who visits Fig every morning and afternoon, and the only one daring enough to land on Fig's enclosure roof. I remind you that she and Pappa have maintained a close relationship with Fig these past three years, though always from a distance, and mainly vocal/auditory as the cannot see one another when Fig is in her enclosure. Fig's Mom, though, comes and sits in the tree, on the wall, or the opposite building's antennae and chats with Fig in a low voice daily, sometimes for and hour, or two, or three.

Mom is coming up on mating season, and nesting, and the last two years have been unproductive years for her. I think building staff have been diligently destroying nests. She only managed one offspring last year, and three two years back, and I think none of them survived. Fig on the other hand is the runt of a large litter of possibly eight or nine, and maybe there were two or three successful nests three years back, so a massive squadron of siblings took to the skies that spring. I suppose that explains why poor Figgy got so badly trampled in the nest, and ended up with an ingrown feather.

Anyway, Fig's Mom made a very nearly successful jail break attempt. If she had done it in the morning, she'd likely have succeeded, but because she probably did it in the afternoon, Fig was too nervous to take a walk around town so close to sun down. She is no dummy, but she was having a mighty good look out that giant hole when I showed up home. The hole was big enough for two Crows to fit through, so if she had really been in the mood for a wander she'd have had it. I am sure I would have found and retrieved her, still I really do not enjoy unplanned outings as having Fig wandering free as hormones are beginning to soar is extremely scary. I know hormones are beginning to soar because Fig's hormones, too, are soaring lately. She sings me never ending love songs, vibrates her tail, and squats down low with her beak raised 90 degrees; she's in full swing to swing. She is now a mature Crow, and I suspect her mother was looking for Fig's assistance to raise this year's brood. She probably also wants to teach Fig how to be a successful mother. It is a heartwarming, and heartwrenching tale to live and tell, but I am convinced that Fig has a happy and fulfilling life with our family. I will provide Fig with nest materials and see if she won't happily go about building a nest, and perhaps lay some eggs, poor baby. I do so wish there was some way Fig could be of use to her mother. It truly breaks my heart that she can not, or at least that I cannot think of a way.

I cannot help but suspect that this story may be one of very few recorded cases of a Mother Crow attempting to jail break her three year old daughter after three years captive, in order to gain her assistance with rearing young, or just to simply let her out free. Hopefully it can serve as convincing, and solid evidence of the intelligence, love, and deep commitment between family members of this incredible species of bird.

I went to the hardware store to buy new fence material, and it was closed until April. So I went to a store I usually would not go to. Amazingly they had four pieces of higher quality material cut to exactly, I mean, precisely, the size of Fig's fence, and I was able to resurface the fence that same evening. The odd coincidences do make me wonder sometimes. They really do. Anyway, I had to nearly ignore Fig until 10:30pm as a result of repairing the fence, and I can tell you, she really was not happy about that at all. She did not get angry or scold me, but she was perplexed and obviously a little sad, so I gave her an extra long shower, and face wash, and she soon cheered back up. These are very emotional animals. They are not loners. And they do not deal well with sudden change to routine or other family members usual habits.