jewish-privilege:

baelgrave:

kedreeva:

baelgrave:

tetraghost:

i wish birds brought ME presents

No, but think about this.

The crows she feeds obviously have their own little lives. They go about their business, and they spot *pretty thing* or /unique thing/ in question. What gets me is that the *first* thing on their minds as recipient of this thing is the little girl that feeds them.

They spot a thing, and immediately must think, “that nice girl with delicious foodstuffs must have this to show my gratitude.”

It’s actually more than that, though, if you read the articles or watch the videos. This has taken place over YEARS- it started with these birds following this little girl around because she was a messy eater and it has turned into a ritual for the family. They have a water station and food stations where they daily set out things for these birds and sometimes (but not always), these birds leave ‘payment’ behind for the food.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

These birds are not just taking food and leaving shinies. These birds are watching over this family now. Their lives have become involved. These crows are keeping track of this girl and her mother even when they are out of the yard. How do we know?

One of them is a photographer, and one day while she was photographing some stuff on a bridge, she dropped her camera’s lenscap over the edge. There was no way she could get it back, so she left it. When she got home, the lenscap was sitting on the edge of one of the feeding stations, waiting for her.

Not only were the birds following and watching over her, they were smart enough to realize she dropped an Important Thing and cared enough to bring it back to her.

I could not have asked for more

I have a story to tell.  

As with so many of my stories, this one is handed down from my family.  This particular one is for my maternal grandmother. 

She was from one of the satellite towns of Lviv, which is now western Ukraine but was at the time eastern Poland.  When the Nazis came, they had already seen the writing on the wall and she, her family and some of their friends had hidden away in a bunker in the forest, and one of their goyishe friends from town came with food (those friends later betrayed them, but, for a time, they were safe).  The bunker wasn’t very big, so they spent as much of their time out of it as they could, and my grandmother would save her crumbs and feed them to this one bird.  She never knew what it was, but, based on her description—and what happened next—I’m thinking it might have been a Eurasian Magpie or other corvid. 

And that bird, over time, which had very distinctive plumage, eventually became willing to eat pretty much out of her hands.  The others in the bunker were… skeptical of this, saying that she should eat the crumbs, but my grandmother was a teenaged girl at the time, and quite the strongheaded tomboy, and didn’t listen.

How much of a tomboy?  Well, one day, she was out for a walk away from the bunker when a patrol of Hitler Youth stumbled across her.  A chase ensued, and she tried to lead them away from the bunker.  She was shot at.  She was shot—lost the tip of a finger.  And she lost them in the midst of the forest after a great deal of running. 

Of course, now she had no idea where she was, either.

So she sat down to take stock of the situation, trying to figure out what to do, when suddenly there’s this chirp! from next to her on the log.  She looks down, and there’s a rather familiar looking bird there.  She’s thinking to herself, “No, it can’t be…” when the bird hops off the log, flies a few feet, lands, and looks back at her with an expression of “You coming?”

And it leads her, through miles of forest… back to the bunker and her family. 

To this day, my family feeds the birds.  🙂