THE BUTLER DIDN'T DO IT! - A MURDER OF CROWS DID!

     Saturday morning. I woke up, put on my slippers, and opened the front door to let my dogs out for their morning ritual - you know, the 'piddle, sniff, bark, piddle...' one. Immediately my eyes sought out a crumpled piece of tinfoil cradling a bit of waxed paper with greasy bits of fat attached. It was lying in the middle of my sidewalk!

Dropped inside my fence!



     Now, I'm used to seeing people toss their garbage onto the ground, but this morning was different. This piece of garbage was sitting inside my gated yard!

(Please note: the phrase 'gated yard' does not mean that I live in some high fahlootin' gated community; it just means that I finally put up a small fence with a gate so my dogs wouldn't run out and attack any other dogs doing their morning walks with their owners. You see, one of my dogs, my 16 year old rescued Jill Russell Terrorist, named Trubble, feels obliged (from early childhood experiences) to hang from the lips of any foreign dogs that she sees within her 'territory'.)

     But I digress. Back to the real story. Why was this greasy, crumpled and spent object lying in my yard? A trespasser in the night? Who? And why did they leave their garbage on my sidewalk? Was it an attempt to 'poison' my dogs? Or what?

     Now, all of these questions stirring in my head were 'B.C.' (before coffee). So, needless to say, I came up with a big "zero" until I began to sip my first cuppa. Suddenly, I had illumination! I knew what had happened! And I could even hear the culprits who were still nearby.

     I heard a raucous sound coming from a tree outside my yard: 'CAW CAW CAW!'  I should have guessed. I hear their cacophany every morning from their perches in the trees. Those crafty-beaked birds had raided someone's uncapped garbage, and lifted the left over food morsels for their own breakfast. And whatever was not 'edible' was dropped and left on the ground.

Moral to the Story:

1. Crows are wanton litterbugs. They drop their leftovers where ever they will. Leftovers can include almost anything that is bright and shiny (like tinfoil) or remotely edible (like fat drippings inside the tinfoil).

2. Sometimes the leftover litter can be dangerous to our pets - like cooked, or broken chicken bones or bits of tinfoil with food still on it. I learned my lesson. Always check out your yard for unforseen hazards left by the local 'murder of crows'.

Note: I am not meaning to malign crows. A 'murder of crows' is the collective noun used to identify a group of crows. (And if it's blue jays, it's a 'scold of jays')