I was out in the early morning on occasional errands when I saw, from the corner of my eye, a pack of dogs growling towards something. I was curious so I looked in that direction to see that they were prepared to turn into predators and feast on a young crow. My mind froze for a bit and recalled the images of the rat and bat that I couldn’t save. I parked my vehicle haphazardly and strode towards the pack. Two of them bared their teeth at me, I couldn’t be fazed. In a short span of time, I became we. Two passers-by came for the rescue of the youngling. It had tried to fly and fell on the road; I saw a nest above its head, atop a tree.

‘Don’t touch the bird, else the other crows will peck on it and kill it!’ – false

‘Don’t touch the bird; else the other crows will peck on you!’ – true

These were the few comments that I heard from the folks around at different points of my life. I’ve had a crow peck on my head once. It does hurt. By now, I realized that a hundred eyes were watching our every move. There was a murder of crows surrounding us from all possible directions.

One of the folks who came to help picked up a piece of broken asbestos sheet and tried to nudge the youngling climb on it. There was a stray lizard which climbed on him, I brushed it off. He was able to get the youngling climb on the sheet, and he intended to place the sheet in the footpath.

I thought; if the youngling is left on the footpath it’ll surely be ripped into pieces, and if it is left atop a wall then there’s a chance that the crows will peck it to death. I understand that crows won’t just kill their youngling because it fell out of the nest. So, that’s the chance I took. I took the asbestos sheet from him, and placed it carefully atop a steep wall.

At this moment, there was only so much I could do. I hope the youngling grows into an able crow.