I set out on my lunch break today, with guitar far from my mind.
Instead of the old axe, I hit the streets and headed towards Wilmington’s Rotary Wheel Garden, right down by Greenfield Lake, with a big fat bag of inshelled, unsalted peanuts. It was time to woo me up some crows to chill with.
In the image below (courtesy of Google Earth), the green circle is where I work; the red circle is the garden. It’s about 3-4 blocks…a nice walk honestly.
The whole area is really beautiful - if youre interested in learning more about, the source link captioning the image below will take you to their website :)
I sat down at one of the benches that surround the pavillion (actual bench indicated, quite unnecessarily, by the red arrow in the image below).
Here’s my fat sack of nuts (below)! I tie the bag shut using a bowline knot, with a section of 550 cord that has a loop on the free end. This allows me to sling the bag over my shoulder like an old school hobo while I’m hoofin’ it.
Here’s me, obviously looking handsome as all getout - no doubt the wildlife is interested in getting to know me…right?? 🤣
That one little dude, on the right, man he was so tempted to come down and munch, but just too intimidated - so instead he laid on the edge like a dog LOL - he was my favorite just cuz I loved his chill posturing…although he was the one who never really came too close. Thankfully there were a few who were a little more brazen than him, which caused him to FOMO his way a little closer.
This guy in the foreground was pretty brave…notice little Gary FOMO above him and to the left, trying to act like he don’t care 🤣
The brave guy was just snatching up everything he could see, so eventually Gary came down, I guess when he decided I wasn't trying to eat his friend...but he still kept his distance.
I sat quietly and still. Occasionally I would dish out another handful of peanuts, but I dropped them closer and closer to myself each time. Brave guy lived up to his nickname, and was always willing to risk coming a little closer to get to the prime spots...little Gary FOMO always let his friend take the risks and reap the rewards, although he was still able to get his little hands on some snackies too :)
This is basically the same picture as above, but I liked the expression on the brave dude's face here, so I kept it...and also after this shot, I decided to name him Master Splinter.
Splinter, just chillin' out and eating a peanut like a pop-tart 😂
Here I tried to intentionally get my knee in the shot so we can track progress. This is about the closest he got today, but I'm stoked with the progress we made. Hopefully if I keep consistent they'll come to recognize me...I'd really love it if I could get one to climb onto my shoulder!
A couple more closeups of Splinter:
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"Oh yeah, I'm gonna eat this right up!" |
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What the heck are you lookin' at!? |
Now, squirrels are not crows. But crows are way smart, so if I keep this up, maybe eventually I'll get a crowd of squirrels, and maybe then the crows will see the squirrels and be like Hey, what's going on with those squirrels? ...and then the slow process of drawing them ever closer to friendship will re-begin!
...of course, I can't just befriend the squirrels and then ditch them when I meet some crows - that would feel a lot like befriending the squirrels just to use them as bait - and that's just not who I am...so perhaps the universe heard my call for crow-bro's and answered with squirrel-churls.
In any case, as an old-school chaote, I remain ever flexible to receive whatever comes my way - and these little dudes are pretty rad company so far!
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