Pearish discovered them in the wash on Monday.  Four fledglings. Jet black, musty, cawing loudly.  Abandoned in an old toilet paper box with an armful of nesting materials.  We considered the possibilities.

Had they blown out of a nest?  Had a farmer collected them to remove from their fields?  Someone else who wanted the feathers?   A do-gooder trying to save them?  We found a line of ATV tracks in the wash, but no footprints from the tracks to the box.

The sun was setting and we had to move quickly or else the babies would become coyote chow.  We raced to a roost in the wash.  It appeared to have been broken.  We set up a ladder and climbed the tree, but lo, the nest was intact and already filled with four fledglings no less.

Anna recalled another roost somewhere in the wash, but if they had blown out, how had they ended up in the toilet paper box?  And it couldn’t have been a farmer. He would have dispensed with all niceties and simply killed them. And someone collecting feathers wouldn’t have left them in the wash.

Sun setting.  The babies were destined to be eaten.  And so home they come.