Bill Walton - Daisy Wheel Press

Stories of fishing, hunting and general tom-foolery

The 5:15 Gang were sitting around a table at our favourite tavern, the Watering Hole, as we call it, washing the taste of a day's work from our mouths when the subject of fall hunting was mentioned. We each ( there are six of us) have our own favourite game. It ranges in size from moose to rabbits and in speed from the wily woodcock to crows. It was the mentioning of the latter that brought the fellow sitting at the next table into our conversation.

"Crows," he said, "are the most intelligent birds native to this area. And I'll bet that you fellows hardly ever shoot one!"

Well, I told him, quite politely, that we indeed got two crows last year. We shot up our only stuffed owl in the process, but we did bag two. We are, however, stymied this year, since we did not have a replacement owl decoy.

He pulled his chair over to our table ( he was sitting alone) and offered to set up a crow hunt with guaranteed results. We poured him a glass of suds on speculation that maybe he knew whereof he spoke. It turned out that this fellow worked at the University up on the hill and he knew the behaviour of crows having studied rats and some dogs that belonged to a guy by the name of Pavlov. said his field was psychology and Freddie said he was sorry for him but ...

"The thing with crows," he claimed," is that they can count. Well, actually they can recognize the number of things without counting." He paused for a sip of Northern Ale. "People," he continued," can recognize four things without counting. Crows can do three, maybe even four." All you had to do was confuse the crows and they could be shot from a hide. ( I tried the counting thing with my wife when I got home but the best I could do was 2 sometimes and 5 once, although the beer may have clouded my counter.)