Hide and seek

The currawong is strutting around under our bird feeder. I can see him from the kitchen. Every now and then he pokes his long beak into the softened ground and pulls out a tasty worm.
I grab the left overs from yesterdays dinner - morsels for the birds, and walk towards the bird feeder.

The currawong spots me. He's hoping that I'm heading for the hills hoist. I'm not heading for the hills hoist, he decides, and jumps effortlessly behind the stalk of the bird feeder. For a moment I can't see him.

Then his head pops out to the left of the feeder stalk. Quickly it darts back. I take another step forward. His head darts out to the right, then back, to the left, to the right, to the left. I continue to advance.

The currawong flies to the nearest tree, as I let the morsels fall onto the feeder. I go back and watch him from the cover of the kitchen.

He flies back to his well tested picking ground, every now and then eyeing off the feeder platform. Finally, he gets the courage to inspect the morsels, but he is ousted by the two crows, regulars, who fly in from nowhere. He watches from under a nearby tree, while they feast.

When they are gone, he returns to his slim, or perhaps slimy? pickings.

"But Mama, why didn't he get the meat?", asks Sabina. I gaze at her with that patient adult gaze "The early bird gets the worm".