The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

"Habemus Corvum !"

February 3, 2007

Taking their siesta during a long hot Florida Summer.

I read last week that Pope Benedict XVI was going to write a letter addressing Chinese Catholics, those in union with Rome (the "underground Church") and the Patriotic Catholic Church sponsored by the Communist government. Yesterday evening I read that Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong had stated (via I Media) the letter would be out before Easter. (Now where have we heard this before ????)

Since nothing is happening on the Motu Proprio front, I decided to write about other ecclesiastical matters and matters a lot closer to home, i.e. my back yard (literally !!)

I have formed a very particular friendship with a couple of Florida Crows. I had never noticed the crows until last Spring. I began to hear a bird with a very distinctive call around the church grounds. Over time this call began to intrigue me exceedingly. Every time I heard the call, I would hasten outside to discover the perpetrator but always to no avail. Then one day I spotted a crow and it emitted the sound. I tried mimicking the bird and it responded to me. After a while I began to notice there were two crows in our neighborhood and sometimes there were three. The third was about 1/3 smaller than the other two. I concluded that this must be the baby of the other two, since they always tolerated junior's presence.

Because of the original bird's distinctive call, I called it "Beeper", the other adult bird I named "Blackie" (not an original title I grant you, but then I'm only an amateur ornithologist - in high school I was a member of the YOC or Young Ornithologists' Club). The young bird I named "Babby". Studying the habits of these birds, from last Spring until this one I have come to notice a great deal about them. For one thing (although philosophically speaking this isn't strictly true) they seem to be remarkably intelligent animals. As the column develops I will give some examples of the perspicacity of these animals.

I walk around the driveway in front of the Church early every morning and after supper. Invariably I encounter the crows sitting on the steeple cross. I noticed that each bird has distinctive sounds. After a while I was able to detect the identity of each bird despite the fact that they are all entirely black merely by their calls and body motion. Having kept Parakeets (Budgies in the rest of the English-speaking world) since 1998, I have noticed various avian characteristics that helped me distinguish the male from the female. Blackie was always much less shy of humans than the bird with the distinctive call that I named Beeper. I surmised by this that this bird was the male. Last week I was finally vindicated in my observance. Beeper, indeed, proved to be a female. From watching the young bird tussle with his Father a few times I surmised that this was the young male learning the ropes of battling.

Mimicking the birds was a vital tool in being able to identify them. During last summer I could literally whistle a few times and both birds would arrive in a few seconds making their different sounds. Why were they so attached to me ? I had begun to feed them !

One day Blackie (the male) was walking around on the grass in the middle of the horse-shoe driveway in front of the Church as I was making my customary evening perambulation. I wondered if he would accept a few pieces of bread. I went inside and found a slice and broke a few pieces. I returned to the driveway and threw a few pieces on the ground in front of him. He snatched them up and flew to a drainpipe at the church and successively dipped each piece into some stagnant water. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I moved a bird bath that had been previously outside the rectory near to the church and the very next day both Mom and Dad took a delightful bath. I continued to drop bread on the ground and now they would take the pieces (sometimes three in the beak at a time) and dip them in the bird bath before consuming them. This earned them the title the "Little Dippers" since they dipped their bread in the water first. After a while I took to leaving bread around the rim of the bird bath and they would simply land on the bath and knock the pieces into the water and consume them.


One piece of bread in the beak	Three pieces in the beak

The "Little Dipper"	A very happy crow

My mother told me that over in Ireland, her crows would eat anything. Well that certainly is not the case with these discerning birds. They are very choosy about what they eat. After a Sunday Mass, somebody had left a chocolate cake in the hall. I put a slice out the next day. The birds went wild for cake ! (Was Queen Marie Antoinette onto something here ???) Even the water took on a chocolate color ! Lately I offered them some oatmeal and raisin cookies - they demolished them real fast ! Today I tried some others - same story. Bread they will eat, cake they prefer !

Every week, twice a week I go around the Church lot and pick up debris: litter, fallen pine cones and tree limbs that make grass-cutting a problem. In late November I noticed a multitude of oak twigs at the base of a pine tree. I thought it strange but thought no more of it. A few days later and the same pile of twigs had returned. I looked at the nearest oak tree and wondered how in the world all the twigs could have made it over to the pine tree and only this pine tree. A light bulb went on... a nest of course. I looked up and there behold the "Taj Mablackie" ! A huge nest constructed in the tree above me. Just then the eponymous bird showed up with a twig in his beak. He was caught in the act. In early January, the birds began to keep a low profile; that is their cawing abruptly ceased. The only exception would be when a potential predator was discovered. One morning about 3 weeks ago a real ruckus could be heard at the back of the Church lot. Suddenly a hawk appeared fleeing for its very life with two very enraged crows viciously pecking at its head. Blackie broke off the attack and returned to the steeple followed second by Beeper. Whenever the birds have a victory of this kind they hoot in unison, their heads bobbing up and down. Earlier in the Fall, they had several occasions to repel other crows that were trying to encroach on their territory. All three birds (including Blackie Jnr.) were needed to defend their preserve. It reminded me of the aerial dog-fights between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain in 1940.

As the parents were settling in for the breeding season, the yearlings could be seen all over the place in large open spaces. They would gather in large flocks and sit in trees calling to each other. Then all of a sudden the birds would soar aloft and begin the "Dance of the Crows". For about 5 to 10 minutes up to 100 birds would swirl around in the air just to come to rest in the trees again. this kind of thing went on for about 3 weeks, the group becoming successively smaller. I wondered what would happen if a crow were unfortunate enough not to find a spouse. I didn't have long to wait to find out, Blackie junior returned. His parents, (predictably) went ballistic. They flew at him to drive him away. As an example of the perspicacity of these birds: in order to re-ingratiate himself with his parents, I have seen him fly over the church to the nest at least 3 times carrying a twig in his beak. Doubtless he helped his parents build the nest before Christmas, so now he concludes if he returns to his former career Mom and Pop will eventually welcome him home. No such luck. He is dispatched with equal vigor by both his parents. In the two videos (Quicktime required) here and here you can see the parents (the Father in particular) driving Junior away. When he tries to return, the Father loses his patience altogether.

Last Wednesday I returned to the Church from running errands. When I exited the minivan I heard a new call from the nest: "Habemus corvum !" I thought. (We have a crow !) Now the dangerous work of guarding the newest addition to the world of crows becomes of vital importance. Blackie maintains a round the clock vigil in nearby trees or the steeple ready to spring into action when a passing buzzard tries to spy the nest and reach the new-born. The buzzards are circling all over Spring Hill. Blackie even fakes the baby's call to make the buzzards think the sound they hear is coming from him. Yet another example of the ingenuity of God's creatures !


Blackie on the steeple	Beeper in the nest

+TF

PS. The Latin for Crow is "Cornix", the Latin for Raven is "Corvus" for some strange reason the Florida Crow (a recognized sub-species of the American Crow) is given the Latin name of Corvus brachyrhynchos pascuus a Crow (in English) is a Raven in Latin ? (Go figure)

PPS. If you thought this column was going to be about the new curial appointment to the Ecclesia Dei Commission you guessed wrong !