Is it a crow or a raven?

from w
All of this week we've had a strange visitor near the back door, but I still don't know if it's a raven or a crow. It's rather large and everyone here just says it's a crow. Anyway I wrote a story based on its visit to us. A story for kids. And there's a couple of photos a friend took of it.
Josh and the Crow

Normally the boy was frightened of birds. He did not like to be touched by their feathers, their claws, especially their beak.

When he was small, an angry bird had flown over him and given him a fright by swooping on his head and pecking at his red hair. It had been a magpie who swooped on him in the nesting season.

So when the large black bird peeked at him from behind a pot plant the boy jumped back in fright. What was this big fat bird doing between the red geraniums on the table near the back door of his house?

The bird stared at Josh with strong black eyes.

Josh stared back, then turned away, ready to run. But, something made him stay.

The bird waddled towards him and put his head up in the air opening his beak wide.

Josh wondered why the bird didn’t fly away. Most birds would do that when so close to a human. Perhaps it couldn’t fly. Yes, that was it. One wing was drooping down. So the bird had been injured.

Josh decided not to be scared anymore. He went into the house, broke some stale buns into pieces and filled a plastic bowl with water and took the bread and water back to the pot plant table. The bird was still there. Then Josh stood back.

The black bird, which Josh realized was a crow with shining black feathers, drank the water and ate the bread.

Then the bird started to sing. It was a wonderful sound, like a clever piece of music by Mozart, better than the piano piece Josh had to practice every day.

Then the bird nodded his head towards Josh as if saying thank you.

So Josh went into the house but did not tell his parents about his ‘pet’ bird.

Next morning when Josh opened the back door, the crow was standing on the back step and it waddled alongside Josh as he put out the bread and water.

Over the next week, each day Josh put out stale bread and water for the bird and each day it was eaten and drunk but the crow did not come up close to him again.

One day Josh looked up at the tall palm tree against the fence and saw that the bird was resting on the topmost branch, and later in the day, there he was sitting on the tall television antenna up on the roof of the house. So he could now fly well. Josh ran inside to get his camera but by the time he went outside, the bird had flown away.

Josh never told his family about the bird. This was his secret friend. But sometimes in the evening when he hears the caroling of a bird, he wonders if that is a visit from his ‘pet’ crow.