It's obvious, or should be, at this time of year there is ample naturally-available food for the wildlife in the ravine.  Still, I feel compelled to bring along the daily outlay of peanuts for them, to sprinkle them here and there in the various cache-places all the squirrels are accustomed to seeking them out within.  And whenever the resident crows see us entering the woods they're alerted to their opportunities as well, clever birds that they are.

They're even teaching their young-of-the-season to look for the peanuts in various places they know they'll be.  And owls sit placidly watching all the activities below.  I think sometimes of the owls' regular perch over the streambed, close to one of the bridges where we often leave peanuts and the regulars; tiny red, the larger blacks and the robustly showy greys; whether they appear as tempting tidbits for the owls, and whether my peanut-largesse represents a serendipitous hunting strategy for the local owls.

A few days ago, on an inner woodland trail we looked back behind us to follow the sound clatter that had erupted.  There, on the trail, three crows had settled and two more had alighted on nearby branches above the three on the ground.  Two of the grounded ones were uttering caws obviously appealing to the third crow, and lifting and lowering their wings.  We adduced immediately the third crow was a parent being harassed by two juveniles, pleading to have food placed into their open maws.

We could see, even from that distance that the third crow had a peanut held securely in its beak.  Once taking possession of peanuts it is the crows' method to break the peanut shell on a handy piece of wood, a stone, anything solid, to extract the nuts within.  This poor bird wasn't, obviously, getting the opportunity to follow conventional methodology, standing there, exhausted with parenthood.