So many surprising and interesting things happen with Fig. I try to write them down so I don't forget, but inevitably some things slip through the cracks of my ineptitude. Still, here are a few snippets of Crow life.
I recently realized, when some wild Crows were making a loud ruckus, probably over the hatching of eggs this Spring (that seems to get them very excited like a collection of relatives crammed into a delivery room at the hospital)....anyway, I recently realized that I could "shush" Fig with rather good success. She was calling out to the noisy congregation, joining in, and waking the neighbors, and I simply went out, and lowered my head, and said, hey, shhhh, and she did. She just shut up completely. I think she thought I was trying to tell her, hey don't talk to those guys, they're dangerous! which they are, which she knows, but had momentarily forgotten in all the excitement. Anyway, she's like, Oh, right, gotcha boss, and clammed right up for the rest of the morning. I was like, good girl! And she was like, no worries. She has a very accurate read of my facial expressions, and hand gestures which amazes me no end.
Lots of interesting communication takes place in the shower. The other day I had to take my son to class, so I took a shower, and gave Fig a shower, but I did not have time to give her the deluxe face wash, head massage, preen that she's has come to expect. So I took my son to class and came back. Fig is yelling AWA AWA at me which means she wants her shower and face wash time together. Fig had already had a shower, fifteen minutes previously, and was still somewhat wet, so I very lazily sat down to give her her usual 15-20minute spa facial while she slept on my knee with my hands dipped in warm water. I get one minute in, and Fig opens her eyes, leaps off onto her perch and insists that she have another shower before the whole face washing routine, as per usual. You can spoil a Crow.
Kudos to my wife, again. She is not only bringing Fig into the house on her own now, she and I are able to pass Fig back and forth for exercise. At first suggestion of this activity, Fig ran up my arm to my shoulder, as usual, and my wife and I were like Awwww, man, she won't do it still. We had thought that since Fig had become cool with playing with her outside, and letting her bring her in, that Fig might agree to dual handling inside, but as usual Fig was timid, and said it frightened her. Then, I think she must have accurately perceived our disappointment because no sooner had both of us loudly Awwwed, than Fig turned around and leapt over to Nori's arm. Then we simply proceeded to pass her back and forth a number of times for a while, which she really enjoyed. More ground broken. Hooray!
Not sure if I have written about this before or not. Fig knows that if she asks me for water, I will come right away, but if she asks me for food, I am likely to say, hang on a second. I mean, water is more important right? More urgent anyway. Well, Fig has figured this out very smartly. What she does is, she calls out that she wants water. So I come immediately with a cup of fresh water, then when I get there in front of her with the water, she leans towards me and screams, almost sarcastically, FOOD! Clever, cunning treachery.
I have written, just in the previous post about jumping into bushes, and breaking her beak, so no need to write about that again.
The other night we had a policeman at our door unexpectedly. He had to come in to talk to us about some mundane thing in the parking lot of no significance. Anyway, Fig was in the house as usual, but I had no idea what a policeman might make of a Crow in our house. I had read stories of policemen wandering around people's houses rather nosily in Japan on the Internet, so I sort of panicked and thought the best thing to do would be to put Fig to bed early for the night. Though in hindsight it would have been best to simply give her a chunk of meat, dim the lights, and shut the bathroom door. She wasn't going to be cawing at 8 o'clock in the evening. But, I had no idea how long the policeman was planning to stay. So, I panicked, and I took Fig outside, and asked her very politely to go to sleep in her night box, which she obliged me to do rather begrudgingly, with a confused look of disappointment which rather broke my heart. And, just to be safe, I did something that I have never done; I locked her in, because I couldn't very well have a bug-eyed policeman, billy club drawn, going full hero mode, asking me what it was that would be flapping around out on my balcony doing aerobics. Now, she really did not like that, but she had no other choice, and soon was off to sleep anyway, though miffed no doubt at my slight. Usually, I will dim her lights for an hour, then close her door for another hour before putting her out to bed. This evening I simply dimmed her lights for ten minutes, then took her out, and she was unfortunately, hardly sleepy at all. It was exactly as if I had tossed my son into bed, turned off the lights, and shut the door...not very fatherly. The next morning, she was not mad though. Instead, she thought she had been punished, so she was very quiet all morning, and did not say a word until I brought her in for our shower, at which time she was very lovey, and chatty as usual. She did not yell at me over the matter as I expected she would. In the afternoon, however, I had to put Fig out again because we were going out shopping, and Fig then assumed that she was going to be asked to go to bed early like the previous night. Well, she suddenly remembered all that had happened the previous evening, and wasn't going to fall for that dirty trickery, and shoddy, disrespectful treatment again, so she very promptly decided to fly all over the house in protest, rather than be put to bed again in that manner. She was very glad, when I did finally collect her and get her to agree to go outside, to discover that I had given her new toys, and a bowl of special dinner to make up for my rather ungracious bedtime manner the previous night, which while it was all for her own good and safety, was the wrong thing to do. Karma.
Last item. I now take Fig to a number of parks, and other places to exercise her, and enrich her life experience. At parks, she insists on running around and playing on absolutely everything, like an excited child. But that's not what I want to write about. What is noteworthy lately is that I have recently taken to holding Fig, instead of letting her perch on my arm. She is simply too playful and naughty. I plain cannot trust her 100% perched on my arm. She will get up to some rascally bounding, and leaping at some point in route for sure, if only to end up hamstrung by her tethers just for the fun of it, and eventually she'll collide with something, or someone. She is simply the world's rascaliest, naughtiest two year old, a raccoon with wings, and I cannot have her come to harm being silly. So, I have taken to carrying her in transit. I have been doing this for quite some time, and I always have done it at least some of the time, especially when she was either too excited, too tired, or too cold, so she is quite used to being carried one way or the other. But what is interesting lately, is that I now have realized that she actually prefers being carried to being perched on an arm. She simply feels safer on her back, craddled like a baby, or resting on her side or sternum along the length of my forearm, legs dangling, or clutching the tethers, wings relaxed, face buried, or playing with the tether cords carefree. She totally and utterly relaxes, submits, complies, however it may best be described. Fig will simply let me carry her along, on foot, on bike, in one hand, without the least struggle or complaint, like a magician's dove, and it feels so natural, and easy, but most importantly....safe. And this, thank goodness, seems to be something Fig and I see eye to eye on.
That's about it.
I recently realized, when some wild Crows were making a loud ruckus, probably over the hatching of eggs this Spring (that seems to get them very excited like a collection of relatives crammed into a delivery room at the hospital)....anyway, I recently realized that I could "shush" Fig with rather good success. She was calling out to the noisy congregation, joining in, and waking the neighbors, and I simply went out, and lowered my head, and said, hey, shhhh, and she did. She just shut up completely. I think she thought I was trying to tell her, hey don't talk to those guys, they're dangerous! which they are, which she knows, but had momentarily forgotten in all the excitement. Anyway, she's like, Oh, right, gotcha boss, and clammed right up for the rest of the morning. I was like, good girl! And she was like, no worries. She has a very accurate read of my facial expressions, and hand gestures which amazes me no end.
Lots of interesting communication takes place in the shower. The other day I had to take my son to class, so I took a shower, and gave Fig a shower, but I did not have time to give her the deluxe face wash, head massage, preen that she's has come to expect. So I took my son to class and came back. Fig is yelling AWA AWA at me which means she wants her shower and face wash time together. Fig had already had a shower, fifteen minutes previously, and was still somewhat wet, so I very lazily sat down to give her her usual 15-20minute spa facial while she slept on my knee with my hands dipped in warm water. I get one minute in, and Fig opens her eyes, leaps off onto her perch and insists that she have another shower before the whole face washing routine, as per usual. You can spoil a Crow.
Kudos to my wife, again. She is not only bringing Fig into the house on her own now, she and I are able to pass Fig back and forth for exercise. At first suggestion of this activity, Fig ran up my arm to my shoulder, as usual, and my wife and I were like Awwww, man, she won't do it still. We had thought that since Fig had become cool with playing with her outside, and letting her bring her in, that Fig might agree to dual handling inside, but as usual Fig was timid, and said it frightened her. Then, I think she must have accurately perceived our disappointment because no sooner had both of us loudly Awwwed, than Fig turned around and leapt over to Nori's arm. Then we simply proceeded to pass her back and forth a number of times for a while, which she really enjoyed. More ground broken. Hooray!
Not sure if I have written about this before or not. Fig knows that if she asks me for water, I will come right away, but if she asks me for food, I am likely to say, hang on a second. I mean, water is more important right? More urgent anyway. Well, Fig has figured this out very smartly. What she does is, she calls out that she wants water. So I come immediately with a cup of fresh water, then when I get there in front of her with the water, she leans towards me and screams, almost sarcastically, FOOD! Clever, cunning treachery.
I have written, just in the previous post about jumping into bushes, and breaking her beak, so no need to write about that again.
The other night we had a policeman at our door unexpectedly. He had to come in to talk to us about some mundane thing in the parking lot of no significance. Anyway, Fig was in the house as usual, but I had no idea what a policeman might make of a Crow in our house. I had read stories of policemen wandering around people's houses rather nosily in Japan on the Internet, so I sort of panicked and thought the best thing to do would be to put Fig to bed early for the night. Though in hindsight it would have been best to simply give her a chunk of meat, dim the lights, and shut the bathroom door. She wasn't going to be cawing at 8 o'clock in the evening. But, I had no idea how long the policeman was planning to stay. So, I panicked, and I took Fig outside, and asked her very politely to go to sleep in her night box, which she obliged me to do rather begrudgingly, with a confused look of disappointment which rather broke my heart. And, just to be safe, I did something that I have never done; I locked her in, because I couldn't very well have a bug-eyed policeman, billy club drawn, going full hero mode, asking me what it was that would be flapping around out on my balcony doing aerobics. Now, she really did not like that, but she had no other choice, and soon was off to sleep anyway, though miffed no doubt at my slight. Usually, I will dim her lights for an hour, then close her door for another hour before putting her out to bed. This evening I simply dimmed her lights for ten minutes, then took her out, and she was unfortunately, hardly sleepy at all. It was exactly as if I had tossed my son into bed, turned off the lights, and shut the door...not very fatherly. The next morning, she was not mad though. Instead, she thought she had been punished, so she was very quiet all morning, and did not say a word until I brought her in for our shower, at which time she was very lovey, and chatty as usual. She did not yell at me over the matter as I expected she would. In the afternoon, however, I had to put Fig out again because we were going out shopping, and Fig then assumed that she was going to be asked to go to bed early like the previous night. Well, she suddenly remembered all that had happened the previous evening, and wasn't going to fall for that dirty trickery, and shoddy, disrespectful treatment again, so she very promptly decided to fly all over the house in protest, rather than be put to bed again in that manner. She was very glad, when I did finally collect her and get her to agree to go outside, to discover that I had given her new toys, and a bowl of special dinner to make up for my rather ungracious bedtime manner the previous night, which while it was all for her own good and safety, was the wrong thing to do. Karma.
Last item. I now take Fig to a number of parks, and other places to exercise her, and enrich her life experience. At parks, she insists on running around and playing on absolutely everything, like an excited child. But that's not what I want to write about. What is noteworthy lately is that I have recently taken to holding Fig, instead of letting her perch on my arm. She is simply too playful and naughty. I plain cannot trust her 100% perched on my arm. She will get up to some rascally bounding, and leaping at some point in route for sure, if only to end up hamstrung by her tethers just for the fun of it, and eventually she'll collide with something, or someone. She is simply the world's rascaliest, naughtiest two year old, a raccoon with wings, and I cannot have her come to harm being silly. So, I have taken to carrying her in transit. I have been doing this for quite some time, and I always have done it at least some of the time, especially when she was either too excited, too tired, or too cold, so she is quite used to being carried one way or the other. But what is interesting lately, is that I now have realized that she actually prefers being carried to being perched on an arm. She simply feels safer on her back, craddled like a baby, or resting on her side or sternum along the length of my forearm, legs dangling, or clutching the tethers, wings relaxed, face buried, or playing with the tether cords carefree. She totally and utterly relaxes, submits, complies, however it may best be described. Fig will simply let me carry her along, on foot, on bike, in one hand, without the least struggle or complaint, like a magician's dove, and it feels so natural, and easy, but most importantly....safe. And this, thank goodness, seems to be something Fig and I see eye to eye on.
That's about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment