Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The gentle scraping as birds alight

This will be hard to do without a sound recording.

Imagine a couple of squirrels trapped in a metal garbage can with the lid on. Or imagine a raccoon in the same position. No, best to imagine a couple of squirrels and a raccoon sealed in a metal garbage can. Now, consider the volume of that sound of frantic scraping.

There are many wonderful birds on campus, many of which I cannot yet identify. I am familiar with the small white egrets and have now read about the pied crows that frequent the Guest Centre grounds. These are an attractive and intelligent bird, but also a sort of cross between Southern Ontario's starlings and crows: noisy and somewhat aggressive scavengers. My understanding is they are more closely related to ravens than crows. They certainly look the part, with a more prominent brow and greater size than a crow has. They also have these stylish looking bibs.



One of the pied crows insists on hanging out on the roof over my room. Since this is a country without frost there is no need for insulation. The ceiling is just a thin layer of pressed board beneath an attic open to the pitched roof above. The metal, pitched roof. The slippery, metal, pitched roof.

The first time I heard the sound I thought some animal had got caught in a well or water container outside my window. Then I realized it was coming from above not below. Now, each day I hear the talons of the pied crow as it scrambles over my roof trying to maintain a foothold. As near as I can tell, it just likes the view.
 
 

2 comments:

vandy said...

Interesting. Your pied crow looks an awful lot like the bird in a tv commercial about window cleaner. I've always thought (assumed or it was implied) that the birds in the commercial were supposed to be magpies. I'd met and loved magpies when I lived in Edmonton, and always mutter that 'those aren't magpies!'
Gee, maybe they're supposed to be pied crows! Now I'll have to look those up...

Anonymous said...

What is the name of the white birds? We have many in East Legon Hills by British International School.