Dr. C.... spectacular photo of an animal with real laser sight and fingertip feathers bent.
Round about thirty years ago a friend clipped the wing of a crow with a ,223 rifle. Having not killed the bird, he elected to save it, if he could. Put it outdoors in a large wood dowel bird cage, where he fed it table scraps. I saw the crow on a visit, hopping around old pancakes and burger, wing dragging, feathers dull, altogether a glum tableau.
An excess of pigeons flocked the farms at that time. I headed for an abandoned barn. Drew my pre-Gold Cup Colt National Match .45 ACP and, from inside the barn, rolled a pigeon out a window. Federal had started to load the Sierra .451 185 JHP in 1977, which, out of that Colt was good for 2" groups at 50 yards. The flock took off. I knew where they were going. They were headed for one of the dairy farms along the river, dairymen I got on with, and I followed. Plug one pigeon and the rest take off. Doesn't take long before you have to stalk 'em.
By mid afternoon I had a brown paper shopping bag full of pigeons. Drove 'em to my friend's, threw three or four in the crow cage. Returned in a week to visit friend----and to check on the crow. Friend's wife lit into me, as the cage a ground around it was strewn with feathers and chicken feet. Meanwhile, the crow, dressed a shiny black tuxedo, struts around the cage, erect as a bantam rooster. Wasn't long before the crow was out of the cage, going on picnics, to softball games. Later took off on its own.
I drove down to New Hampshire to visit Ben "Bear Man" Kilham. Many consider Kilham America's foremost authority of black bear. Kilham had worked in the Colt Custom Shop until one of Colt's big layoffs, when, in Kilham's words, "They laid off everyone who knows how to make guns." Ben and his sister Phoebe were raised by their father, Dr. Lawrence Kilham, Lyme NH (himself a battlefield surgeon with the U.S. Army as the Allies shot their way through Germans across France, WW II) to rehabilitate orphaned wildlife.
As I told Told Ben Kilham the story of the wounded crow and its recovery, Ben said, "Eating whole pigeons saved it. You did exactly the right thing. They need the whole animal for nutrition, including the guts. Healing restored the sheen to its feathers, changed its outlook on life. You know it's recovered when mating season starts and it takes off. The crow may check in now and then on your friend who brought it home, but it won't necessarily tell him."
David Bradshaw
Dr.C
