Rescue Project - Craig The Crow

There was a big noise in our garden yesterday. Lots of crows are currently nesting in the big trees around us and two seemed to have decided to have an argument right in our garden. However, when I checked, I realised there was a third bird involved - slightly smaller and with white on its wings.

The noise kept on during the day and by the afternoon I had enough and the little bird had been scared by the other two so much you just had to feel sorry for it.

I decided to call the RSPB, however there was no getting through on their phone line so I called the RSPCA emergency line instead. They were very helpful and promised to send someone round as soon as they could.

The little bird had settled in a corner of our garden and I got the kids to sort out the two nasty crows that had been picking on him. Here are a couple of pictures of the bird I took yesterday late afternoon:

I hadn't been sure that it was a crow at all at the beginning when it was hopping around in the undergrowth trying to escape the other two birds, however, when I got a closer look, I realised that it was a fledgling crow, although the white feathers on it's back are still quite unusual. You can just see them peeping out in the pictures above. The kids decided to call the crow 'Craig' as a bird needs a name, especially a little one looking so sorry for itself.

Late this morning the lady from the RSPCA arrived and managed to catch it with a net. Her conclusion was that it might have been thrown out of the nest either by its own parents or some other birds because of the white feathers. Apparently, a crow has to be black. Nothing else will do and nothing else will be tolerated. Poor little thing. The lady from the RSPCA promised to feed it in her van (we'd given it some cat food last night, but it was still quite thin) and then to take it to the Wildlife hospital.

Fingers crossed, Craig will be fine.