The Jackdaw and the Doves

In a sunlit meadow near a prosperous village, there lived a jackdaw with feathers as black as midnight. He was a clever bird, quick-witted and observant, but like all jackdaws, he was always on the lookout for an easier way to find his meals than the usual foraging.

One fine morning, as the jackdaw was flying over the village square, he noticed something that made him pause mid-flight. Below, a kindly old man was scattering handfuls of plump wheat grains for a flock of beautiful white doves. The doves cooed contentedly as they pecked at the feast, their white feathers gleaming in the sunlight.

The jackdaw landed on a nearby rooftop and watched with envy. “Look at those fortunate doves,” he muttered to himself. “Every day they are given the finest wheat without having to search for it, while I must scavenge constantly for every morsel.”

Day after day, the jackdaw returned to the rooftop to watch the scene repeat itself. The old man would arrive at the same time each morning, his pockets bulging with grain, and the doves would gather around him, knowing they would be well-fed.

After much observation, the jackdaw hatched a plan. “The old man feeds the doves because they are white and beautiful,” he reasoned. “If I could make myself look like a dove, I too could enjoy this easy bounty.”

With this idea firmly in mind, the jackdaw flew to the miller’s yard on the edge of the village. There, sacks of flour were loaded and unloaded each day, and a fine white dust covered everything. The jackdaw rolled himself in the flour dust until his black feathers were completely covered in white. He examined his reflection in a puddle and was delighted with the transformation.

“Perfect!” he exclaimed. “Now I look exactly like a dove. No one will know the difference.”

The next morning, the jackdaw arrived at the village square just as the old man was beginning to scatter grain for the doves. With as much grace as he could muster, the flour-covered jackdaw landed among the gathering doves and began to peck at the wheat.

For a while, his disguise seemed to work. The old man continued spreading the grain, and the real doves, though giving the newcomer curious glances, did not immediately object to his presence. The jackdaw was elated, his beak quickly filling with more grain than he would normally find in an entire day of foraging.

“This is the life,” he thought smugly. “Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”

But his satisfaction was short-lived. As he moved about excitedly, pecking here and there at the most tempting grains, some of the flour began to shake loose from his feathers. A gentle breeze picked up, blowing away more of his disguise. Worst of all, in his eagerness to gather as much food as possible, the jackdaw forgot himself and let out a harsh “caw” instead of the gentle cooing of the doves.

The sound caught the attention of the doves, who turned to look more carefully at their strange companion. As they watched, more flour fell away, revealing the jackdaw’s true black feathers beneath.

“This is no dove!” called one of the doves in alarm. “It’s a jackdaw trying to trick us!”

In an instant, the peaceful scene erupted into chaos. The doves, normally gentle creatures, were outraged by the deception. They surrounded the jackdaw, beating their wings at him and pecking at his partially white, partially black feathers.

“Impostor!” they cried. “Deceiver! Thief!”

The jackdaw tried to escape, but the doves drove him away from the square, pursuing him until he was far from the village. Battered and humiliated, with most of the flour now knocked from his feathers, the jackdaw finally found refuge in a hollow tree deep in the forest.

There, he was discovered by another jackdaw who had been searching for him. “Where have you been?” asked his friend. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. There’s a freshly plowed field on the other side of the forest with plenty of worms and grubs for everyone.”

The flour-streaked jackdaw sighed heavily. “I thought I’d found an easier way to get food,” he admitted, and went on to explain his plan and its disastrous outcome.

“That was foolish,” said his friend when he had finished the tale. “Even if you had managed to keep your disguise intact, do you really think you could have lived happily among the doves? Their ways are not our ways. Their food, while plentiful, isn’t suited to our true tastes. And you would have had to maintain that exhausting pretense forever.”

“I see that now,” agreed the jackdaw sadly.

“Come,” said his friend more kindly. “Wash that remaining flour from your feathers in the stream, and then join us in the field. We may have to work a bit harder for our meals than those pampered doves, but at least we can be ourselves. Besides, there’s nothing more satisfying than a fat worm you’ve found through your own cleverness!”

The jackdaw followed his friend’s advice. As he washed away the last traces of flour from his natural black feathers, he felt a surprising sense of relief. The weight of deception had been heavier than he realized.

Later, as he joined the other jackdaws in the freshly plowed field, calling out to each other in their distinctive voices and using their natural intelligence to find food, he felt truly content for the first time in many days.

“It’s better to be a genuine jackdaw,” he thought to himself, “than a false dove. I may not have an old man feeding me, but I have my own kind who accept me as I am, and the freedom to live according to my true nature.”

From that day forward, whenever the jackdaw felt the temptation to envy others or to pretend to be something he was not, he remembered the painful lesson he had learned in the village square.

Moral: It is better to be content with who you truly are than to risk everything by pretending to be something you are not. Those who abandon their true identity for material gain often lose both their pretended advantages and their genuine place in the world.