Time ages in a hurry

Μετὰ τὴν σσιάν τάχιστα χρόνος. After the shadow time ages in a hurry.

Time Ages in a Hurry is the title of a marvelous book of short stories by Antonio Tabucchi, published by archipelagobooks.org. The line, attributed in the book to the Critias, is from a late antique commentary.

Time surprises. Time ages in a hurry. I have never been so aware of time. I am currently making plans for moving in December from Seattle -- after twelve years in this wonderful house, back to Washington, DC.  I will be going back to the apartment where I have lived longer than any place in my life, taking it over from the daughter who took it over when I moved here.

This will be my 15th move as an adult, and the first I have not wanted. This house is full of light: it faces due east and on sunny mornings, I begin my day by coming down the stairs into pools of liquid light. I have never before lived where I could have a garden but I have grown roses here, and developed my own garden.  There is a grape arbor -- I've mentioned that before.  And there have been the birds!  The smaller ones follow me around the yard and when I go on walks. The crows track me from room to room in the house, and a member of the third generation I have fed informs me quietly when their food pan is empty. His parents below -- a pairing that lasted only for a year -- would come sit near us when we would sit in the yard.   This small corner lot is overflowing with gratitude.

Meanwhile, I find I am not able to maintain this blog reliably.  There will be erratic posts while I try to decide what to do about it.  I am grateful for my readers -- there have been nearly half a million individual looks at material here, and especially for you who have taken the trouble to comment or write me. If Time permits, I would love to continue writing.

Pierre Antony MacKay

Pierre MacKay, my partner and ξυνεργὸς, died quietly on Sunday morning, June 14. Typically for him on Sunday, he was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, and he went so gently he didn't drop his pencil. Readers of Surprised by Time will be intensely familiar with his work: he is responsible for the wonderful Mistra and Evliya Çelebi translations used here. I am putting a few photographs of him below. His daughters, Camilla and Alexandra, and I are having a gathering here at home on Saturday. We will be using the marvellous Callimachus poem below. It has been very personal to us: every evening for twelve years, when the weather has permitted, we have eaten out under our grape arbor and talked the sun down out of the sky.

Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
    ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
    ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
    ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ 

Someone told me of your death, Heraclitus, and it moved me to tears, when I remembered how often the sun set on our talking. And you, my Halicarnassian friend, lie somewhere, gone long long ago to dust; but they live, your Nightingales, on which Hades who siezes all shall not lay his hand.            by W. R. Paton

The wunderkammer

Wunderkammern fascinate me, so I have made my own small cabinet of small things that belong no place in particular. Small things attract other small things, so I am going to have to get another cabinet. Meanwhile, I take some out, put others in, rearranging to find ways for these small things to speak to one another.  Perhaps the main thing they have in common is that each one is small enough to be concealed in my hands

Amethyst and moonstone. 

Ghanaian goldweight snake and tourist Athenian owl.

Fox skull. 

Sixteenth-century Persian sherd.

Hummingbird nest and silkworm cocoons. 

Theo's otter. 

Miniature of a Benin leopard.  

Glass carafe stoppers and a hedgehog.

Corinthian aryballos. 

Firecrest nest, jay and flicker feathers, abalone shell.

Thirteenth-century Corinthian sherd.

"Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children."

Every spring I know less about what I am seeing, or, the ratio between what I know and what I am seeing is smaller. I had not before realized the mortality rate among crows. A crow could live 20 years and more, but few seem to survive past two years. These pictures I took last week at breakfast indicate one reason why, but it is one of the less common reasons.  At least fifty crows were mobbing an eagle that had one of theirs in its claws.

We had fewer crows than usual over the winter, and this spring there are only three I recognize. Washcrow and Her are not breeding this year, but they visit frequently, and spend time sitting companionably, apparently watching the two of us sitting companionably.  I have seen Washcrow for 4 years now, since he was brought to our feeder as a fledgling. One of last year's young -- I can't tell if it is Wow or Futhark -- talks to us frequently.  A handsome gleaming male I do not recognize comes to the feeder to collect food for his mate -- he will feed her for the three weeks of brooding, and then for the 5+ weeks until the young fledge.

There is great difficulty defending the crow feeder from the seagull, and the ground-feeding birds are at great risk from the neighbor's cat which usually lurks under our car. The Oregon juncos, normally ground feeders, have learned to graze at the squirrel and crow feeders, so they are safe. Sometimes ground means "ground," and sometimes ground means "flat" instead of "perch."

The raccoons discovered the crow feeder last year – it is on the porch outside my bedroom – so I have been leaving cracked corn and peanuts in shells for them. They come irregularly. There is a beautiful male, a very shy female with a tiny face, a pair of twins, a female with two young. Sometimes at night, in downtown Washington DC, and park-side Seattle, there is a horrible squealing shrieking noise. I identified that sound long ago as the sound of something being eaten, and would lie in bed feeling miserable when I heard it. Recently I discovered it is the sound made at the encounter of two raccoons who have not been previously introduced, and that it need not involve violence at all, though I think two were fighting Tuesday night.  I have also learned that raccoons are not particularly afraid of humans, or of us, and if one starts to leave from anxiety, s/he can be persuaded back: the soothing tones you use for babies and pets are equally successful with raccoons.

We keep a steady supply of black-capped chickadees who tell us when the feeder needs refilling, or when we are in the wrong area of the yard. There is a nest in the bathroom window frame, and in summer I can lie in the tub and listen to little scratchings and chirps. Chickadees can live up to 12 years, and I don't know if the same chickadees come back to the window frame  year after year, or if we have had dozens of residents since the house was built in 1905.

From 4 in the morning until after supper, the yard is full of small fragments of music. The birds are calling while the owls are still out, while I am talking to the raccoons. When the sun is up the sounds give the sense of showers of glitter. "Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children." I don't recognize all the calls, but we -- and the neighbors and the park --have robins and house finches and varied thrushes, song sparrows, Townsend's warblers, wrens, juncos, and now bush tits. The tits were absent all winter, but now they are back with dozens of babies, so small they look as if you could grab a dozen at a time. There are so many finger-sized pine siskins that the feeders have to be refilled every second day.

We have made a good start on a small plantation of meleagris where it can be admired from the sidewalk, and a hellebore garden in the damp under the nut tree in back. I have become enthralled with hellebores.

                                     

                               Other echoes

Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?

Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,

Round the corner. Through the first gate,

Into our first world, shall we follow

The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.

                                                                   T.S.E. "Burnt Norton."

Crow Summer 2014: Part Two

Crows in moult: the view from my desk.

Watching the crows this summer, we have learned to distinguish several of them by a combination of size, curve of the beak, amount of feathers hanging down under the neck, bushiness of leg feathers, and so on. We have lost track of Wow, Tak, and Futhark: there are about eight young the same size. They have lost the red in their mouths, and they no longer scream to be fed. I suspect it is Futhark who dive-bombs a sibling and yanks on his tail. The moult is nearly completed, but so many crows replacing all their feathers has made tremendous demands on supplies of protein.

Korax continues to visit. Washcrow and Her continue their late afternoon quiet time. Her is quite shy and continues to be skittish about our presence, but Washcrow visits, making a quiet rattle which I try to imitate, and then we will exchange assorted clicks and rattles for a bit. At least two other crows have followed his lead, and sometimes from the feeder there will be a wonderful, brief, flourish of crow sounds. One makes a series of small sneezy sounds when he sees me, while one makes small coughs. Washcrow will also, when the feeder is inadequately supplied, come near and let out a blast of two caws, demanding food which I immediately provide.

Watching the crows this summer, we have also gained information we would prefer not to know. Crows get sick. They have crippled feet. They have deformities.  They have avian pox with white spots and tumors. One has a blind eye.  The unwell crows are cranky, snap at other crows on the feeder. The healthy crows don't seem to discriminate against the unwell when we are watching. There is ultimately nothing we can do about the unwell.  The number of them is distressing -- do we have an accurate view of the ratio of well to unwell, or do we see more of the unwell because we provide a reliable food supply?

Sometimes we can help them a little. Pierre constructed a feeder so the crows have three different possibilities for standing – on a rounded perch, on the narrower edge of the pan, on a flat plank. The crow with the crippled foot will land on the plank, foot curled, and then press it down on the plank until it opens up to support him. I discovered that the two crows  with poxy faces liked soft bread – the pox makes sores in the mouth. After a week they rejected it, and I saw that one was getting better: the other has disappeared.

The unwell crows are more difficult to photograph.  They stay at the feeder a shorter time, their  movements are jerkier, and I have wondered if they see the lens of the camera as the eye of a predator.

Skin problems on the chin. These seem to be much improved.

This is the crow who makes sneezy noises at me.

Crippled foot.

Avian pox and damaged beak.

Avian pox.  

Tumors of avian pox.  The one on the left foot has become
 much larger, and the one on the right began since we 

started noticing.  

This crow, a relative of Hork, has the pox tumors
on one foot, and is blind in his left eye.  

To end on a more pleasing note, the young
squirrels of late summer have discovered
the crow feeder.

Crow summer: 2014

Washcrow and Her, courting, early March.

It's been a very satisfactory year for crows, beginning in March when we were able to follow a courtship. Most crows remain single, and those who do not are usually in their 3rd year when courtship happens. I have no idea how crows are selected for courtship. Pairing is normally for life.

The photograph above was the only one I was able to get, and you have to take my word that they are courting. Courting usually happened in the mornings, on a power line where the sun would shine into the camera.  Washcrow would move close beside Her and nibble on the back of Her's neck -- properly called "grooming" -- the one part of Her she could not reach for herself.   She never groomed him.  This reminds me of the saying: In every love affair there is one who kisses the cheek, and one who extends the cheek to be kissed.

Grooming continued for several days, and then we would see Her settle down low on the power line, tilt her head sideways, spread out her tail & wiggle her bottom.  The Betty-Boop-gender-stereotyping was almost shocking.  

Why we call him Washcrow.
He has taught several other crows to wash food for the young.

We saw them inspect an unused nest, and then saw the occasional stick being transported to the upper reaches of a cedar two houses away.  Then Her disappeared.  The male crow feeds his nesting partner.  When the young hatch, the male and some of their relatives feed her and the infants. About three days after we realized there were young to feed, we first saw Washcrow first visit Ann's peacock-designed birdbath, and carefully soak food before he took it home.  

On 4 June, a Wednesday, we were having coffee in the yard with Aislinn, when there was a thud on the roof of the car and a homely little tailless crow said, "Wow!" He said "Wow!" several times, we said "Wow!" in response, and for the last month he has normally appeared when one of us calls "Wow" Wow is the grandson (granddaughter?) of Korax whom I introduced here last year.

 Wow on his first day out of the nest.

On 5 June, Tak appeared, tagging after Wow.  Tak spoke less frequently, with a lower voice. 

Tak and Wow, 5 June.

Then on 9 June, Sunday, Futhark appeared.  Four-plus weeks later, Futhark is still smaller than the others.  Wow is the most outgoing, Tak the shyest.  Futhark will look at us, cock his/her head, and then make quiet rattling noises, sometimes a sort of cuckoo-sound.  When the others are screaming to be fed, nothing distracts them.  Futhark can be distracted into conversation.  

Futhark, 1 July.  All three still have the distinctive red mouths.

At the time of writing, the three have not yet started taking the initiative in finding food, though they will follow their parents to the feeder, then sit there alternately gobbling mouthfuls of food, and screaming to be fed while their mouths are still full of food.  The parents are admirably dispassionate.  When the young beg for food, they assume the same submissive posture of the female in courtship.

Wow, Tak, and Futhark have made us exceptionally aware of   crow mortality in our neighborhood.  In the past week we have twice found masses of small feathers.  A month ago we found feathers that appeared to have exploded from a central location, their points driven into the ground.  A very young crow had encountered a mesh of power lines and transformers.  The two feathers on the left show the results of electrocution -- the blackening inside and the melted tips.  The two on the right show the results of having been chewed. 

The cooked and the raw.  

Hork, who was with us the past two years, has not been seen since February but Korax shows up several times a day with two young crows of his own. We have fewer crows at the feeder than we did last summer, but they are putting away huge amounts of food, more than on any day in the winter when we would have as many as 15 and 20 crows.  They get primarily cat food and corn meal, with occasional treats of suet, walnuts, bread.  Last year they stole all the blackberries, but this year it has only been the cherries.  Every year they get the cherries.  They seem to know which day we have scheduled to pick, and they get to the tree before we are out of bed.

But about the food-washing.  Because of the food-washing, I have been putting clean water in the birdbath twice a day.  Today -- the day of writing this -- I put clean water in for the first time in three days.  Abruptly, the young have to deal with adult food. It is still sometimes brought to them, but it is no longer softened.  

Futhark, even though he is conspicuously smaller than the other two, can definitely deal with adult food.  In fact, he is showing signs of delinquency.  We have, several times now, seen him fly up to a parent and jerk the food out of the parent's bill, without even pausing to beg.

Wow, Futhark, & Tak, or possibly Tak, Futhark, & Wow. 6 July.
Beaks open on a hot day.

 I thought I had finished writing this entry to post tomorrow, but while we were having our late-afternoon ouzo, Washcrow came as he usually does to keep us company.  This time Her landed beside him and leaned Her head against him.  Washcrow caressed the back of her neck and stroked under her chin.  Then they sat quietly side by side.

Air erodes feathers

Primary feathers from left and right wings, thinner on the fore-edge.

Erosion is evident on both edges.

From July on, the crows are in moult, even the ones that hatched out in the summer. The feathers that grew in beginning last July work their way out, and new feathers grow. There is a period of more than two months when crows lose their glossy black and become not just a drab brown, but because of the feathers coming out and the feathers coming in, they look like a medieval band of lepers. This is when you see bits of their insulating undercoat made up of little fluffy grey feathers.

Crow at the worst stage of moult.

Air -- and sunlight -- erodes feathers. The brilliant black that sometimes flashes blue and purple in the right angle of light is a matter of refraction, not only of melanins. During the year the structure of the feathers that refracts the gloss wears down, and at the end of summer crows show the underlying pigments. 

Not all of our crows are evenly-pigmented.  The Korax family has patches of lighter-colored feathers all year around, some of them with a light ring around the neck. They are not discriminated against by the black crows.

The fore-edges of the wings gradually deteriorate.  Brushing against the nest, or tree branches and telephone poles, or other crows, wears down feathers. If you want to see nearly perfect feathers, go to this site created by the US Fish and Wildlife Service where you can identify most of the individual feathers from 100+ species of birds. 

It is illegal to possess these feathers.  I brought them inside to scan, and then returned them to the outdoors, to the crow shrine.  We have a place on the edge of the yard where we put odd things dug up in the course of gardening -- strange-shaped rocks, enormous nails used for railroad ties, crow feathers. Passers-by sometimes take the stones, never the feathers. As far as I can tell, when the crows eat cracked corn beside the feathers, they never notice them.  

I am fascinated by the evidence of the seasons, something I take for granted with the trees, with the plants in the garden. When the chlorophyll in leaves breaks down at the end of summer, we see the underlying carotene and anthocyanin pigments. Until this year, I had never made the connection across the species between the change of leaf color, and the change of crow color, between shedding leaves, and shedding feathers.  But that analogy goes only so far.  One of the Korax family came up to the car when I drove into the driveway this afternoon, and I saw the glossy black of the new feathers, not fully grown out.