Survival
“Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception” – Carl Sagan
I have been watching a crow family who have made the pine tree in front of my house their home. Perched on the top the Mama crow sat on her eggs and perched in my balcony drinking tea I watched over them. I had also bought a new DSLR so they were my muse for a while. I prayed for them every time there was a thunderstorm and the tree swayed left and right in the wind or whenever I saw the eagle hovering above.
Crow scouting the trees
Crow’s nest
The predator
And then came the day….. when I saw something I never thought I would see and which broke my heart.
Seemed like the eggs had hatched and the babies wanted food. The papa crow and mama crow cawed at each other(I had no clue what they talked then) and after the conversation papa crow perched near the nest while the mama crow went to the nearby pigeon colony. She tried to get near some pigeon nests but one pigeon family gave her a fight, however there was a lonely pigeon mama sitting on her eggs in one corner. The crow went there and started attacking the pigeon, the brave pigeon never gave up so the papa crow pitched and both started attacking the pigeon. They were so quick and dexterous that finally the mama pigeon couldn’t take it anymore and left the nest. Then the crows took the pigeon eggs to feed their babies. The pigeon came back to her nest to see the damage, I am not sure if they have feeling but to me it looked like she was heartbroken.
Like a curious cat I watched nature at work – my tea got cold…..BUT this got me into thinking –
Is survival the only purpose of life?
If YES – then there is no good and bad, they are mere perceptions – what is good to me could be evil to others and vice versa. There can be a justification for everything we do and the action could be right as long as our conscious is clear !!!
If NO – then should we just succumb to the bad and be grateful for the good and live life thinking – everything happens for a reason !!!
Just some r@nd0m th0ught$ !!!
ART PEACE 
Good read Prasna!
Hope all’s well with you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey, I am doing great… Thank you 🙂
LikeLike
Depending on when it happened, the pigeon could quite well lay another clutch of eggs.
Left to its own devices, nature is a perfect machine that will produce millions of crows and pigeons and evolution will solve any problem.
The plus points from the episode you witnessed are that evolution perhaps stops this pigeon from passing on its genes, because it is not good enough at defending its nest, or it could have picked a bad place to build its nest. There also may be too many pigeons without incidents of this sort. The crow that feeds its children passes its genes on as determined and good at feeding its young.
It’s only when we humans interfere in a serious way that things start to go very wrong.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is a very good point!! Nature always has a way to test and see who is the fittest to survive. Human interference has always led to unbalances and your logic about the determined crow is amusing and a fresh perspective for me. Thanks for your insight 🙂
LikeLike