Just pears, but a source of satisfaction to me. I planted the tree and began to espalier it about 10 years ago and this year is the first time it has fruited. It is also the first time that I have made an attempt to prune it properly.From the train, yet again I catch sight of a crow alone in the middle of a field. A solitary crow in a vast field of grass, as today, or a ploughed field. Its position, dead centre is important. And its solitariness too. I used to imagine that a crow in the middle of a field thought that it was God in the process of creating something. Today a more mundane reason occurs to me. The crow, often slow to take to take to the air, occupies the centre of the field to keep as far away as possible from predators lurking in the hedges. Altogether more likely.
Behind me I hear the regular banging a a muffled drum combined with footsteps. The owner of the footsteps overtakes me. She is hung with carrier bags like a Christmas tree. One of the bags swings as she walks, striking another bag in time with her steps. She walks quickly. That's the way with shopping.
4 comments:
Are there predators that target crows? My impression is that they are smart enough and aggressive enough to discourage predation. Very occasionally one sees a flattened crow on a country road but in Herefordshire at least they are outnumbered by flattened pheasants (arguably the stupidest bird in Christendom).
If I were a fox, deprived of chicken, by battery farmers and the like, I would fancy a crow that strayed too near a hedgerow where I lay in wait.
Hawks and owls are two raptors that take crows, usually the sick and old, the injured and the hatchlings.
Crows are magnificent guards and sound warnings at first sight of predators, even those that generally have no luck in catching them.
I believe foxes are as smart as crows, certainly as wiley, so Plutarch is on to something in his summation, I think.
PS: your pears look delicious, by the way.
Post a Comment