Flying Cheese

During a lovely afternoon in the Teien Museum park, I finally experienced what I had only heard about - the Tokyo Crows. These ballsy birds think nothing of swooping down and grabbing the food out of your hand, which is one reason you never see Japanese people eating on the street.

We had set out our picnic on one of the tidy white tables arranged carefully on either side of the pebble path. Cheese, fruit, crackers and drinks were being enjoyed, and Lori and I were careful to watch both the girls and the birds that were occasionally making an appearance, flying from one tree to another.

As the girls gradually moved away from the table, so did we, keeping an eye on both. Lulled into a false sense of security by the absence of the flying creatures, we turned our attention to the running ones we were following around as they explored.

All of a sudden, Lori looks up and says "I think that crow took our cheese". We ran back to the table and sure enough, two small wheels of cheese, both only partially eaten, were gone. The sliced cheddar had been dropped from some point above and was lying on it's side on the table. We looked around but couldn't see the offending fowl, but threw everything that wasn't completely covered out immediately, silently cursing these wretched things. Silently, because there were two impressionable little girls standing around just waiting to repeat whatever words came out of our mouths and sounded interesting.


As we stood there, one appeared and swooped down as if to say "you think the cheese was bad, perhaps next time I'll pick up one of these cute little girls. Either one would surely make a tasty snack".


And I do believe they could, as this one's wing span was about the same size as either one of these cute little girls.


Time to go!!!