A snippet from the book, Me and You, and a Crow Named Blue by P Jean Oliver:
My Friend Blue
One spring morning, as I was getting the coffee going, I raised the kitchen window blind to look out, froze, coffee cup suspended, as crows fell out of the sky, two pursued by half a dozen others. Horrified, I thought I was watching an actual murder of crows playing itself over my yard.
Wide-beaked and panting, the injured crow crashed my garden, crashed into the Bluebells and Forget me Nots, gaining a moment because his pursuers had to bank away. It snapped me back to, and I ran to the door.
As I came out, the mob startled and took off but didn’t go far. Their target panted on his back in the garden to my left, the upper right leg held up, mangled, a tangled mess of black sticks. Its mate hopped in closer, ready to battle the human. We all stared at each other, they rested then took off again, the mob lifting from nearby perches on eaves, literally on their tails.
One day about two weeks later, the couple surprised me by reappearing on my roof, and as astonishing as their survival, and return, the once injured bird’s leg was clean, somehow neatly amputated at the hock.
My breakfast boiled egg were immediately tossed out the door to them, they pounced, spearing the white flesh with their beaks like deft chopsticks , and catching my heart at the same moment, a mutual appreciation was born that would one day mature into friendship.
From that day on my loneliness lifted, never to return, knowing this brave little bird was to change all that.They were named Blue, and Belle, for the flowers Blue had crashed into the day he’d been attacked. Why the crows were attacking I’ll never know, but I was to discover the life of a wild urban crow is fleeting and fraught.