For a number of years we kept a bird bath, with the predictable birds
visiting it. We enjoyed watching the occasional crow because it would lean
forward to get a mouthful and then look skyward, letting gravity do its
thing. Quite comical.

Then a rib joint opened along the lake (Washington) at Madrona Beach. It
smelled wonderful when the wind was right, and it promptly caught the
attention of the crows. Within a week we saw a crow with something that
looked like an old whitish tennis ball at the bath. Binoculars showed it to
be a very large piece of roll, hard crust and all, from the cafe. The bath
water soon made it all into mush that the crow ate at its leisure and with
obvious delight. That was fun, and we got used to changing the bath water
daily to rid it of roll residue and barbecue sauce.

Then one day my wife looked out the window and asked, "What's that in the
bird bath?" T'was a rib, a very large rib, complete with enough meat to
keep a small shark happy, soaking in the warm bath water. And sure enough,
in a minute or so, along came a crow from the direction of the food source,
only a few blocks from us, as the - oh never mind. It had a roll for its
rib. How gross.

A few weeks later we made our annual Seafair exodus to escape the noise,
being careful to fill the bath with fresh cool water before leaving. We
came home a few days later, not to a birdbath, but to a boneyard. It looked
like where elephants go to die, and became a shrine at night, for small and
medium-size mammals, some with scaly, and others with furry tails.
There are times when we miss our bird bath, but not many.

David Chelimer
Seattle
chelimer at earthlink.net