This is Minnow.
In last week's blog I was talking about trying to figure out a name for Bo and Lorena's baby. I was hemming and hawing over names that were symbolic and meaningful when the name Minnow popped into my head. And stayed. The next day "baby" became "Minnow."
Minnow is still babyish, but they are growing up fast. They can already eat kibbles on their own.
Minnow can even drink water on their own!
But they still have to be fed regularly by Bo and Lorena because they don't know how to forage yet.
This is Bo feeding Minnow
Minnow really likes the water tub. We're in the middle of a heat wave, so I brought it over early in the week. Usually I just bring a small bowl and take it with me when I'm done so the neighbors don't think I'm littering, but it's been brutal lately. Record-breaking heat day after day.
Minnow got right into the tub on purpose.
And sometimes on accident.
They kept going back to play with the water, sometimes dropping in stones and dirt clods. Probably mimicking their parents, who sometimes soak food before eating it.
Minnow also played with their food. I tossed them a little dog treat and they weren't sure what to do with it. It looked like they were trying to cache it for later, like the grownups do. That might be why they picked up the leaves afterwards, even if they never got around to covering the food with them.
On the summer solstice was when the heat wave started. It was also when Bo said something to me that sounded very much like "I love you." I do say that to him regularly, so it's possible that's what he was saying. Crows are great mimics and can learn words the way parrots do. It's also possible that he was asking for water in his crow language. Regardless, it was magical.
I went camping for a few days this past week, and really missed the family. When I got back, Minnow came right down to see me and my dog, once their parents arrived.
And yesterday, as we were leaving, Minnow called out to us.
I just love this little one.
Because of the way they behave and how much they look like Lorena, I have my suspicions that Minnow is female, but it's still too hard to say this early. So I'm just using the they/them pronoun for now.
Minnow doesn't mind.
Bo was messing around a couple days ago, trying to get into what may have been part of a sprinkler system. Minnow was fascinated. I loved watching them watch Bo. Junior (Bo's little brother that Bo helped to raise) used to look at Bo this way when Bo was still living with his parents.
This video is pretty long, but if you fast-forward to about a minute in you can see Minnow doing some pretty cute little behaviors that remind me of a monkey.
Bo and Lorena have been pretty sweet to each other lately, sometimes leaving Minnow on the ground with me and Pilot and go off and preen each other.
Lorena on the left, Bo on the right
The past two days I have brought them ice.
Bo and Lorena both cooled their feet on the ice. This is Bo.
And this is Lorena. People often ask how I can tell them apart, but you can see pretty easily how much more petite and slender she is.
(Minnow was curious about the ice, and slurped some water off of it, but I didn't take any pictures. They're still a little timid about the camera and I didn't want to interfere with their opportunity to cool down.)
I've been really worried about the crows in the heat. Portland doesn't normally get as hot as it's been these past few days (we're talking 115 Farenhiet, or 46 Celcisus) and I've been diligently delivering water, food, and ice to my crow friends. They seem to be doing ok, just hot. They're always happy to see me. And you can imagine how happy I was to see this little fledgling silhouette this past evening.
This baby bird is one of the fledglings of Girlybird and Lod, parents of Bo and Junior. So this is the next generation of their babies!! They've been much more discrete than Bo and Lorena about the whole nesting process. I was overjoyed to finally meet this baby! And, in spite of the heat, they seem to be very healthy and active.
Hooray!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! If you’d like to learn more about my friendship with Bo, check out my blog An Unexpected Friendship. I blog about Bo and his family every week, and post tons of my photos of crows and other birds (and sometimes other subjects) on a regular basis. If you like this kind of stuff, follow me! And join Feathered Friends!
All photos and videos are mine unless otherwise stated, taken with my Nikon D7500 or iPhone and edited with Apple Photo Editor and Adobe Lightroom.
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Minnow
