“Hey Peanut Boy” was never a good name for a crow. Not even as a come-on line.

That was our first attempt to seduce the immediate members of our backyard crow family, usually numbering four. Our reasoning was simple. Crows like peanuts. Crows are super smart and can imitate voices. If we say “Hey Peanut Boy” to a crow as we’re tossing it a peanut, it will eventually solicit peanuts from us by flying up to us and saying “Hey Peanut Boy” and all our neighbors will think we have magical powers and a general freaky vibe. In other words, their suspicions about us would be confirmed.

Our crow family did like peanuts. We know that because as soon as we were out of sight they’d scoop them right up, and not a moment before. And if they truly were good mimics, they weren’t about to let on.

Years went by. We had, we surmised, one crow mommy, one crow daddy, a teenager, and one juvenile hanging out in any given year. We tossed them all peanuts. I believe it was the teenager that got the least respect. If all four crows were perched nearby and we tossed a peanut some respectful distance away, they’d all descend on it, but the teenager was the least aggressive. He’d hold back. If he did try to edge in sidewise, he’d get his head pecked, and I mean right now.

In fact, we could tell which one he was even when there were no peanuts involved, because he always had at least a little poop on him. Don’t even try to tell me birds can’t aim poop. I have seen them do it. I have seen our crows perch on the wire, calculate trajectory, clench, and nail Little Brother on the street below, right on the head. More than once. The poop-speckled crow never, ever got the peanut.

After several years I got my crow family to at least pay attention when peanuts were being tossed, but not lower themselves to the intimacy I craved. But then came breeding season, and they had to attend to their new-crow manufacture business. This involved mama and papa and at least one attendant from the previous year, and poor Poophead either got left out of the production or saw an opportunity to strike out on his own a bit because everyone else was occupied. All I know is one crow started approaching us a lot closer than the others.

When we were first seeking a personal crow attachment, we named our crows. Dickens. DooDah. Hey-Peanut-Boy. But we got tired. After a while they were all BooBoo. I can’t tell them apart except the one with the poop on his head who comes close. He is now Official BooBoo. And I don’t know if he’s a he. I might be misgendering, but BooBoo doesn’t care.

Now he gets real close. He shows up at the sound of the door opening and if I start walking he’ll follow along at my heel, and if I don’t have a peanut he’ll fly up and then do a swoopity around my head. A gentle feather-fluff at the ear. Not the terrifying crow dive-bomb when they’re protecting their nestlings on the ground, but a friendly wing-wash to say HEY! PEANUT LADY!

A few months ago he landed on the porch railing for his peanut, and I came outside, gently, and poked a peanut on the railing, and stepped aside and away, and he sidled up to it and nabbed it like anything, and then stepped back about two inches to hammer away at the shell. I’ve been shortening the distance. And finally, last week, I refused to put the peanut on the railing, and instead put it in my flat hand on the railing, and he didn’t fly away, and I did him the favor of turning my head in another direction, and—it took a good minute—NAB! He took it from my hand.

I am ecstatic. This has been a multi-year project. I just needed one put-upon dejected crow and some time. Next up: landing on my shoulder like a proper familiar, and the possibility of some enchantment in my favor.

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