Poor Crow

7/20/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Anticipating the forecasted heat by afternoon, I went out early Wednesday morning. I didn’t have to walk far to find some action: a Seattle City Light truck gearing up in an intersection. Pen poised to catch the action as the crane raised the worker into position, I heard the story:

A poor young crow had gotten into the fuse box, causing neighbors on the east side of Eighth Northeast to lose power. (We live on the west side and rarely lose power for any reason.) As I sketched, I overheard neighbors chatting nearby, and they said this type of outage happens to them multiple times a year. Apparently crows are attracted to the buzzing sound. The City Light worker said it’s always juvenile crows – I guess if you live long enough, you learn to avoid fuse boxes.

Neighbors were grateful for City Light’s swift response.

Once the worker was in position, flipping the switch took only a few seconds, so I missed drawing the crane that supports the cherry picker’s basket! But it was fun to be in the right place at just the right moment.