Gratitude
Dahlquist kept leaving snacks at the fir tree base without expecting anything in return. However, the crows decided to show their gratitude with a bit of a gift. The first gift was a bit confusing, said Dahlquist, because it was sitting right in the middle of the area where I tossed their food.
So at first, he did not pay it any attention, he assumed it was dirt or something that had made its way from outside, but soon he would find out that was the first of many.