Bertram's Disappearance

Sunday evening, Bill spotted Bertram on the roof next door, eating a mouse. Crows aren't hunters, so I knew this was carrion, and started stewing about Bertram being poisoned by Decon, or some other poison that may have killed the mouse. My fears worsened when Bertram disappeared for a few days. I spotted him just once on Monday, and then not at all for the rest of the week. Corvina, however, continued coming around, although staying farther away than normal.

Yesterday I decided it was time to face facts, and sat down to have a good cry. Then I remembered. Corvina and Bertram are nesting, and one of them would need to be sitting on the eggs. I quickly found a web site dedicated to bird behavior, hoping to learn that the crow male rather than the female sits on the eggs. Not so. That was it!

Then it suddenly struck me. What if Bertram was actually a female? There's no way I can tell which one is which. I had simply dubbed Bertram as a male when "he" first started coming around, and my own story had become so grooved in my mind that I actually believed it.

Is Bertram really a girl?

I spent the rest of the day trying to believe that this could be true. After 24 hours, I'm starting to accept the idea. How curious is my mind, that I make up a story and then believe it's true, against all evidence!

This probably means a major wardrobe overhaul.

Update: A friend just told me that she watched a crow catch a mouse and eat it. So I was wrong, and they are hunters after all.