Double Dipping

So good, you can't eat just one.

I was at a local park taking pictures for the 400 calorie project, and I decided to put the food on a nearby picnic table when I was done photographing it. After all, I wasn't about to eat all of those calories myself.

The crows clearly preferred the cookies to the slices of bread, I think because it was easier to fly off with a whole cookie. And since the crows were clearly wary of getting too close to me (read: within about 15 or 20 feet), anything they could snag and then fly off with was a good thing.

This particular crow was willing to be a bit more patient when he was in the line of fire, and would pick up a cookie, set it atop another cookie, and then pick up both of them at once, and fly off, netting 160 calories with a single trip into the danger zone. Of course the more cautious crows, waiting at various points outside the frame, would immediately swoop in as he made his getaway, hoping to force him to drop a meal that they could get without having to get too close to the dangerous, camera-wielding predator that was keeping the area under surveillance. (The crows were fortunate that the ducks never figured out what was going on. Being willing to pretty much stand on my feet for a free meal, the more or less tame local mallards would have fearlessly picked the table clean then waddled over to ask for more. Which may explain why we eat duck regularly, but "eating crow" is only an expression.)

In any event, it was educational to watch the birds interact with the food, each other and me. I should do it again sometime.