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Here's a short story regarding business communications, customer satisfaction, sales, marketing, business development, repeat business, sustainable supply chains, etc., brought to you by the Corvid Family.

Short version: Following various miscommunications with crows, a happy crow left a gift of a cherry tomato, whose seeds I have cultivated and now have beautiful cherry tomato plants that yield very tasty tomatoes.

Long version: In my early twenties, I drove across America, and at one point I was deep in a primeval rain forest in Oregon, having a lunch of canned tuna and a beautiful avocado.  Sitting on a rock,  I was promptly joined by a crow, who gave me a look and a caw: "So you're going to eat all that avocado yourself?" I cut the skin off the avocado in pieces and she took it and flew away, only to return in a minute or two for another slice. We repeated this process until the meal was done, and the bird looked at me and gave me a brief caw-caw, before flying away.

Forty years later, this past spring, I am sitting in our garden and I hear a whole lot of crows nearby. As a person who enjoys learning languages, but who is probably best described as a "human parrot" rather than an accomplished linguist, I loudly imitated the caw-caw-caw-caw that I heard. I don't know why I did that, but this is what one might expect of a human parrot. In this case, though, rather than a nice friendly and inquisitive crow visiting me, a large, rather scruffy crow - maybe a raven - sat himself in front of me and, well, how do I put it? He chewed me out! Pacing back and forth, looking straight at me in the eye, he went on for a good minute or two, clearly angry at me, yelling at me.

I have since determined that the cause of his range might have been one of the following: that I might have scared his brood, or that my crow (or raven) accent was so terrible as to be insulting. In any case, that was one angry bird, due to my own actions.

At the time I had not yet downloaded the Bird-to-English translation app to my smartphone, so I was left, old-style, having to deal face to face with this big angry bird. In my most dulcet tones I repeated, "Pretty bird, pretty bird." That actually seemed to calm him a little. I then went into the kitchen and fetched a couple of strips of cooked unsalted pork from the previous night's dinner, along with a raw egg, which I served on a small plate and cracked open for him. He took one of the pork strips and ate it, but he took the second strip and flew it over to our garden, leaving it in an openly visible spot. Hmm, that's odd. I thought that maybe he was saving it for later, or for another bird. He then drank up as much of the egg that he could, but runny egg on a ceramic plate really isn't the preferred style for the bird. Finishing, he looked at me again, not saying anything, and he flew off.

Well, that was an interesting exchange, but far stranger was the next day. I had been growing some mung beans in a planter and I noticed that one of the seedlings had shot up overnight, sending up a pale white shoot about an inch high. But looking more closely, I was a bit puzzled, because the shoot didn't have the typical bean seedling look. There were no tiny leaves. I started to dig around the seedling, to further investigate. However, I quickly found that this was not a seedling, but rather a buried mouse fetus! Yes, the crow or raven buried an unborn rodent in the garden. And he left the pork strip untouched.

This was one of those stories that I was reluctant to tell me wife, but I am glad that I did, because it was too horrific for me to deal with alone. Not only was I the enemy of this big crow (or raven), but he's burying corpses that he knows I will see, because he deliberately positioned the corpse with a leg sticking out of the soil. The bird understood that I was gardening in that soil, and he believed that I would come upon it the next day.

We gave a proper burial to the rodent and we left the pork strip, in case the bird would come the next day. I gave up my crow imitations and avoided the garden, frankly afraid of what might come next.

The next day we noted that there were no corpses deposited, but one planter was pecked through by the crow. The angry crow, whom I somehow offended again.

Further research on crows and ravens show that they are intelligent, emotional creatures, who often exhibit "transactional" relationships with humans. So no, the crow wasn't an Agent of Death. There are plenty of humans who fulfill that role.

Because I had given the bird two pretty tasty pork strips, it left one to share with me. His gesture was sweet, but I completely misunderstood, thinking that maybe he wanted the meat to rot. He brought me what was for him a heavy and meaty mouse corpse as a gesture of thanks and in repayment of his debt for my pork offering, but I completely misunderstood him, thinking that this was one scary bird.

According to the all-seeing Internet Wisdom, the crow was showing that good things can come from our relationship. But in the days after our encounter I did not leave him anything, because I was frankly afraid and too weirded out. My refusal to return his favor of the mouse corpse unfortunately insulted him, and that's why he pecked at one of our planters. He wanted to show his anger. "I gave you a great meal and you ignored my favor!"

Message received, too late. Unfortunately, he never came back; and yes, I miss him.

Later in the summer, it seemed that the crows were very loud in our neighborhood, and of course, I had to open my big beak and caw back. This time, a smaller crow (probably not a raven) flew over to visit, and I gave the bird several raisins, which were happily eaten. Although this crow was not communicating verbally with me face to face, and was a little shy, at regular hours each afternoon it would caw several times by a back door, and I would then effectively be expected to leave more raisins, which I did.

We carried on this amicable relationship for a few weeks, when one day I noticed a miniature cherry tomato had been left on a railing around our garden. There were no tomato plants nearby, so I understood that the tomato had been delicately plucked from someone's tomato plant by the crow and carefully flown over to us, as a gift of thanks for our raisins.

The sounds of the crows stopped for the rest of the season, and I haven't seen any since then. I hope that next spring they'll be back.

We planted the seeds from that gift tomato, and we have glorious tomatoes growing in our hot-house, yielding beautiful sweet cherry tomatoes. All thanks to a crow who returned a good deed.

Thinking about my encounter in the Oregonian woods years ago, I now believe that the crow was bringing the avocado skins back to her nest to feed her babies. I don't have proof, only a sense.

Some quick business-related points related to this long story:

1. if a crow (or a human equivalent) is angry and yelling at you, think that maybe you had done something wrong. Yes, maybe it's just a bird (or customer) that is over-reacting or just plain crazy. But maybe there's a good reason why that bird (or customer) is upset. Think about their story, not just your annoyance.

2. You and the bird (or your company and another company or individual) might have very different life (or business) experiences, and the upset might be due to lack of good communication or mutual understanding.

3. Addressing rage with rage is not a good way to live with an otherwise friendly bird (or customer). Without being pandering or obnoxious, try speaking civilly to the other party, to bring down the rage of the bird (or customer), so that you both might leave that experience with a better understanding.

4. Unless you are dealing with an outright predator, and yes, they are abundant, kindness can help nurture a relationship. "Good acts" usually yield "good acts."

5. Kindness and good treatment of a customer (or bird) can yield unseen benefits, like positive referrals, repeat business and other good situations, which are the fruits of your good behavior, care and attempt at understanding your customer - seeds for larger business growth.

The Gift...	The First Fruit...
The Bounty Begins...	Seeds for the Future...