A few years ago, as they mused over their friendship with a sociable neighborhood crow, David Zopf told Denise Patton, “We should write a whole story about that bird, because nobody would believe it.”
They never got around to it, but the story has come to light after all as Patton honored Zopf, who died in March, as a crucial volunteer at Mid-Columbia Senior Center. (See related story.)
Patton is director of the Meals on Wheels program, which operates out of the senior center, and she and Zopf shared a love of birdwatching.
“Over the last 15 years we developed a friendship with a group of crows,” she said.
One bird in particular, Beauty, became a favorite. “We had one very special little girl that was fantastic and she had a vocabulary. She could say ‘walnut,’ ‘hungry,’ and ‘hello.’ And she was so beautiful because she was so well fed; she loved dog food.”
“She would actually skim the top of your head when you were walking into the building if you ignored her. She would fly over the top of your head and touch you.”
Zopf was a driver for Meals and Wheels and tended the rose garden and shrubs at the senior center before his death. He also communed with the birds, and Beauty liked to keep him close.
Patton recounted, “I would drive by [the senior center] and David would be watering the rose garden and sitting on the edge of the dock. And for no reason at all, but just because she loved David, the crow would be sitting behind him, and he wouldn’t even know she was there.”
She said, “We just lost her last year, she was 12 or 13 years old. We actually called her Beauty to start with. But about two years ago, something happened to her, she had lost a leg. Oh, it was awful.”
“We ended up calling her Peggy because she had one leg,” Patton said. As in “peg-leg.”
She disappeared for a few weeks after she lost her leg. “We were so concerned about her.”
But then she showed up again.
Because she was so well fed, Beauty could raise four babies successfully.
“Everybody in the building loved her,” Patton said. “I could go out and whistle for her and she would come flying in and the people in the building would leave leftover meat for her and she would come and get it all. She was huge. After she lost her leg she could no longer hold her territory.”
“It is an amazing thing because they want to be your friend, they really do. They like interactions with people.”
“Crows are not like other birds,” she said. Baby crows stay with their parents for 18 months. “Even after they grow up they will still come home and see their mom and dad. Their relationship with each other is very similar to how people relate to each other.”
Beauty/Peggy had a mate, “but he was a little standoffish with us,” she said. “I’m assuming he was not raised in this area, because all the crows know us.”
The other day, she found the mate. “He’s brought another mate in – two-timer! – and he was actually in the tree and I was talking to him and he was trying to say hello also. Now that she’s gone he’s trying to step up a little more.”
Crows are very smart, she said. Awhile back, Patton got a new white car, replacing her black car, and she was worried the crows wouldn’t recognize her vehicle to come get their dog food. As she was driving one day with her sister-in-law, expressing this very fear as she tossed out dog food, her sister-in-law said, ’I don’t think you have to worry,’ and a crow was flying right beside my driver side window.”
In all, she said, four crow families live around the senior center, which is at West 10th and Cherry Heights. “Cherry Heights has a family, [Mill] Creek has a family, St. Mary’s [Academy] has a family, and the Springs [at Mill Creek] has a family, and the central point is the senior center,” she said.
“And if one group crosses the boundaries, they come in just like a bullet and they hit the other one,” she said.
That territorial behavior is only on display during breeding season. Winter is a different story. Then, she can feed all four families as one group, no problem.
A flock of crows is called a murder, and “they can get massive. They can get a million birds in them,” Patton said.
And while she has befriended the birds, she never touches them. “You never want to make a wild animal a pet.
“They are an incredibly social animal, they need other crows.”
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