Zookeeper Tales: Old Man Crow
Jul. 31st, 2010 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elionwyrOne of my human coworkers at the zoo accused me early on of having no respect for her – and I should, because she was my elder.
My general response to such a sentiment is, “No. You earn my respect; you may have my courtesy, as a general rule.”
But when it came to Old Man Crow, he immediately had both.
Old Man Crow was in his twenties when I started working at the zoo. He was so old that he literally had feathers going grey. His feet were knotted up and swollen from arthritis, so that he tended to walk on his elbows. But oh, he was a proud old gentleman, and he spent most of his days out of his cage and perched either under a parrot cage or balanced on top of a water hose. (I assumed he liked the warmth on his feet.)
When you have 120 animals in very close proximity, animals interact that would probably never see each other in the wild. We were always learning new and interesting things about our critter-coworkers. Opossums? They love bananas. Armadillos? They apparently hate opossums. And crows – well, at least Old Man Crow – are scared of tortoises. Which was useful to know, because it meant that if a tortoise escaped from the kitchen into the main area of the animal room, Old Man Crow would sound the alarm.
“OH HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS THAT HUGE WALKING ROCK IS OUT HERE WITH ME GET IT GET IT CAAAAAAAAAAAW!”
As contrary and sometimes aggressive as Baby Crow could be (don’t worry, the naming of the crows improved as the years went by), Old Man was generally pretty mellow. He did, however, have one thing he absolutely insisted on: Let him return to his cage under his own steam. If you tried to carry him back to his deluxe apartment in the sky, he’d fuss and flap his wings until you released his jesses, whereupon he’d fly to his home perch on his own, thank you VERY much.
In the wild, crows will mourn the death of one of their flock. I can’t say that I saw much of this from Baby when Old Man finally passed away – but then, it was hard to see much from Baby that wasn’t just plain ol’ ornery in those days.
I believe that both crows were imprints, meaning that they were raised by people and thought we were just some very feather-lacking crows. Both birds could fly, but whereas Old Man was given his freedom each day, Baby only got a few days a week in the bird exercise/flight room to stretch her wings. She had toys in her cage, but she preferred to amuse herself by trying to bite any monkey paw placed too close to the barred door of her cage. In later years, when she had a much larger enclosure and more time spent out of said enclosure, her nippiness faded away quite a bit. Beautiful and vaguely mischievous, interacting with Baby was one of the better parts of my job as a keeper, and my only regret involving her is that I could never quite get her to take a dump on Duckie’s head.
She came dang close though, one day, and received much praise as a result.
(Yes, I had, and have, duck issues. For dang good reason.)
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My general response to such a sentiment is, “No. You earn my respect; you may have my courtesy, as a general rule.”
But when it came to Old Man Crow, he immediately had both.
Old Man Crow was in his twenties when I started working at the zoo. He was so old that he literally had feathers going grey. His feet were knotted up and swollen from arthritis, so that he tended to walk on his elbows. But oh, he was a proud old gentleman, and he spent most of his days out of his cage and perched either under a parrot cage or balanced on top of a water hose. (I assumed he liked the warmth on his feet.)
When you have 120 animals in very close proximity, animals interact that would probably never see each other in the wild. We were always learning new and interesting things about our critter-coworkers. Opossums? They love bananas. Armadillos? They apparently hate opossums. And crows – well, at least Old Man Crow – are scared of tortoises. Which was useful to know, because it meant that if a tortoise escaped from the kitchen into the main area of the animal room, Old Man Crow would sound the alarm.
“OH HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS THAT HUGE WALKING ROCK IS OUT HERE WITH ME GET IT GET IT CAAAAAAAAAAAW!”
As contrary and sometimes aggressive as Baby Crow could be (don’t worry, the naming of the crows improved as the years went by), Old Man was generally pretty mellow. He did, however, have one thing he absolutely insisted on: Let him return to his cage under his own steam. If you tried to carry him back to his deluxe apartment in the sky, he’d fuss and flap his wings until you released his jesses, whereupon he’d fly to his home perch on his own, thank you VERY much.
In the wild, crows will mourn the death of one of their flock. I can’t say that I saw much of this from Baby when Old Man finally passed away – but then, it was hard to see much from Baby that wasn’t just plain ol’ ornery in those days.
I believe that both crows were imprints, meaning that they were raised by people and thought we were just some very feather-lacking crows. Both birds could fly, but whereas Old Man was given his freedom each day, Baby only got a few days a week in the bird exercise/flight room to stretch her wings. She had toys in her cage, but she preferred to amuse herself by trying to bite any monkey paw placed too close to the barred door of her cage. In later years, when she had a much larger enclosure and more time spent out of said enclosure, her nippiness faded away quite a bit. Beautiful and vaguely mischievous, interacting with Baby was one of the better parts of my job as a keeper, and my only regret involving her is that I could never quite get her to take a dump on Duckie’s head.
She came dang close though, one day, and received much praise as a result.
(Yes, I had, and have, duck issues. For dang good reason.)
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