Tuco

Last Saturday night I went downstairs to my office to grab a piece of fabric for a quilt I am working on. My work table is right in front of the window (we have very deep window wells). I happened to glance up to see this large crow sitting very still, giving the appearance he was dead. It freaked my out! We've had other animals fall into the wells and die so this would not have been a surprise except this was a bird! How did he get there?
You can see he had been scratching at the window and it is now all muddy. When we knocked on the window he opened his eyes but remained otherwise completely still. In the morning I checked him and he was pacing around the window well and tried to fly out, but could only get about half way up. He was calling to birds flying in the trees in the backyard and they were calling back but it was obvious that they could not see him for all of the foliage around the opening. We had a very busy Sunday so we couldn't get him out until the evening after a fireside, but Bruce used the skimmer he uses for the pond and scooped him out (all the while he was squawking like we were trying to kill him).

This big crow has made himself quit at home in our back yard - walking around, eating my flowers and bushes, and pooping on every rock we have out there.

On Monday Bruce called his stake clerk, who is a vet, and asked what we could do to help this bird. He told us that it was more a fish and game issue and that they would come over, take the bird, and kill it because he won't, or can't get better. I didn't want to do that (well the closest fish and game office is in Ashton which is 45 miles from here and I doubt they would come all this way for a crow). I was hoping he would just heal and fly away.

When I came home yesterday in between classes, I saw that he had flown up halfway into a large tree and I thought, "Yippie he's healed!" Last night he was back on the ground and is just jumping rather than flying from rock to rock. He starts calling to other birds about 5AM and screams all day until it get dark which is around 9:30PM.

Birds come and swoop down by him. One even flew to where he was on the branch of the tree and landed right beside Tuco (some visiting professors from Mexico have named him that) and stayed for a visit, screeched, and then left. Tuco calls to them and they call back but they can't do anything to help him. The other birds fly from tree to tree in the backyard all day long but can't do anything to help this. Tonight we are going to catch him again, put him in a box and take him down by the river. We'll release him then, I imagine some animal will get him but I won't have to know about it. I prefer to think he will get better and fly away to meet his friends. I know it's the chicken way out but I can't kill Tuco.