Well, this morning we found a crow in our pool. The poor thing had been out there about five minutes before my girlfriend's mom finally went out to see what the dogs were barking at. As she hates crows, she called Bridgette and I out there and we got the crow out with the pool skimmer and set it on the ground nearby. At first it was in the shade, but it was shivering uncontrollably so I picked it up with a towel and moved it to the sun for a minute or so, covering its face so it wasn't fully exposed to the heat, then we moved it back to the shade. Then we noticed all the bees on the flowers there and finally decided to move it up to the deck where we could keep an eye on it.
The entire time the bird seemed in shock. It was breathing heavily at first, though its breathing evened out after a while, and it was shivering and shuddering. It made no attempt to peck at us whenever we moved it, and still hasn't though it's been out of the water for probably two hours and seems pretty much dried off. We've not only been able to pick it up with the towel, it's even gone so far as to let us touch it and pick it up barehanded, though it tries to spread its wings when picked up. It also made some halfhearted pecks at pieces of bread we put in front of it, though it's ignored a bowl of water. We had moved it down to underneath a covered area on the ground level and it was just standing around, after having preened its feathers a bit. It didn't react much whenever anyone got close to it, except to move away after a while if anyone petted it. But my girlfriend got up at some point and all of a sudden the bird freaked out.
It jumped, spread its wings, cawed for the first time since we found it, and it's neck kind of curved under and the white membrane covered its eyes. We thought it was dying, it looked very much like it was having a seizure. My girlfriend's sister said it was dying and asked us to just take it out front so they didn't have to watch, so we did...
And now the bird's just sitting there, looking just like it did before the seizure, not seeming to mind anyone's fingers on it or any presence around it. And we're not really sure what to do. It seems fine but it won't try to fly, and we have no idea what that little freak-out was over, unless it was just some sort of panic attack or something. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there a chance this is someone's pet crow? I've never imagined a wild bird doing this, all the other small birds I've ever saved or handled after they got stunned would try to peck viciously. It's rather confusing O_o.
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