Two Crows

The first crow was angry when the second crow arrived.  They bounced

photo credit: furry.org.au

around and growled at each other.  They had no idea what they were doing though they had been scavenging their whole crow-lives.  In their anger, they were in fact robbing themselves the opportunity to pick clean the bones of a half eaten carcass they themselves had not killed, to split it fifty-fifty. In the distance you could hear approaching crows making equal claims to the meat over the ungraceful sound of heavy-boned wings. The territorial claims of crow 1 and crow 2 invited a whole gaggle.  The malcontents all made noise.

Having displayed their feast, the decaying rabbit is then unwillingly distributed amongst their peers and eventually flies and maggots.  The first crow is left to scream against the flock, while the object of her pride is devoured.  The second is like her, wings on hips scolding and seething.

Who wins?  The first pair of crows is the obvious loser.  The flock that gathers at their call only rips a tiny portion of flesh, as there is now much less to go around.  This is not a win, only a morsel of avian socialism.  The winners – the winners are perhaps the flies and their maggot babies.  They are afforded the opportunity of the forgotten spoils.  They, with their tiny orifices, clean the bones to bleach white.  Plenty of food to complete a whole fly life-cycle.  And the maggots learn that when they grow up through their ugly metamorphosis, they need only listen for the disquieted feud of two crows and the noisy flock which gathers.

What is it about the crow that will not let him keep his greedy maw shut?  Why does he advertise his decomposing meal?

And the moral of the story is… [comment liberally]