Sundays are suited for wandering. Yesterday, doing just that, I saw what appeared to be a black plastic bag flapping in the wind. This struck me as odd, since it was a calmish day, so I crossed the street to look closer. What I found was a crow with its head and right wing wedged between the pickets of a white fence. Beak open, breathing heavily, it looked tired from the thrashing. This was just as well because it didn’t struggle much when I pulled it out. Wary of the Hitchcock-like crowd of crows gathering on the telephone line above my head, I dropped it quickly towards the grass. Surprisingly, it flew. It drifted near the ground for the first twenty feet, dripping clear liquid on the pavement, but it slowly gained altitude, and eventually found a tree at the end of the street, friends in tow. I can’t remember ever having held a live bird in my hands; it was softer than I would have expected. I probably looked like a cheesy magician, the way I released it. But, since the circumstance was not contrived, the feeling was much different.