Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Ms. Scruffy

Last year Lolli and I noticed a Raven with damaged feathers.  


She can not fly.  She is quite a mess.  We call her Ms. Scruffy.



She gets around on phone lines, cable and power wires and, roof tops.  We started feeding her dry dog food but a local wild life expert told us it was better to feed her protein, scrambled eggs, for instance.

A friend recently emailed me to ask how Ms. Scruffy is doing?

Here is my reply:

"
Yep, Ms. Scruffy is still among us!

Lolli and I were gone July and August but asked a neighbor to continue putting scrambled eggs out for her while we were gone.

When we returned Ms. Scruffy was missing for a couple of days but she realized a steady diet  of scrambled eggs was back in town.  Soon she started showing up several times a day and if we didn't notice her she would call us!!



Her primary feathers never molted this September, as we hoped, but it seems she did replace her body and secondary flight feathers.  For a while, last month, I noticed she would run and partially fly, over and over, along roof tops, into the wind, and I was hoping she was getting better flying feathers but, now it is October and I don't think "real" flying is in her future.

Since her territory seems to consist of only one block I thought I would be able to figure out "her day" by following her around.  I have tried that several times but it gets real boring and I usually give up and move on to other things.  She seems to eat at our place and then go elsewhere on the wires to sit and gaze off in the distance and groom herself.  Sometimes she hunkers down on a wire and does, what I call, "brood" for an hour or so.

There has been a lot of recent activity what with houses being re-roofed and streets being repaved.  She doesn't like all the commotion and her appearance for scrambled eggs gets sketchy for a day or two but, once the activity dies down, she re-appears.

The routine:

In the morning I will look for her and if I see her I will get her scrambled eggs out of the refrigerator and go outside, walk around the corner of our house to our garden to where her food "platform" is located; calling her name and holding up the container of scrambled eggs for her to see.  When I dump the eggs onto the platform I always "tap tap tap" the container against the platform to make sure it is empty and also signal that food is ready.  She responds, hopping and flapping across roof tops, running along wires and then onto our roof, over to the garage roof, down to the gutter, hop onto our fence and then walk, while "looking looking looking" to make sure if is safe to approach the food.  Finally she arrives and gets to it.  



She will eat most of it, or all of it, except for one largest piece which she likes to take in her beak and then walk along the fence back to the garage; then hop up on the garage roof where she will finish it off and then get on with her day. 

I really get a kick out of her when I walk out of the house sometimes and she is waiting right beside and above the porch, leaning over to look at me; just her head showing.  I go back in and get her more scrambled eggs and she follows along on the roof as I walk to her food platform.  She definitely knows who I am and what the drill is!!"





When the wind is blowing it is amazing how she can walk the wire and not get blown off!


She is not our pet but she sure is entertaining.

Ms. Scruffy.


6 comments:

  1. I LOVE this story. Ken is a friend of ours, and we love reading his Facebook stories. Thanks for feeding Ms. Scruffy!
    ~Jean & Steve

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  3. There are mysterious spots on the planet that we live in. I would need to say that my visit to the Lost Coast was a standout amongst the most epic and charming snapshots of my life. http://www.mordocrosswords.com/2016/09/scruffy-couple.html

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  4. There are mysterious spots on the planet that we live in. I would need to say that my visit to the Lost Coast was a standout amongst the most epic and charming snapshots of my life. walking on a roof can damage it

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  5. As a roofer in Modesto I enjoyed reading this a lot, especially the part where Ms. Scruffy stands on the roof top. Over here it sometimes gets boring so I sure find reading this entertaining. Thanks.

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