Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 14/98) - A Fort Smith cab driver has a bond with nature that's as strong as it is unusual.

Simon Haaima, owner/operator of Border Cabs, has had an almost constant companion for the past few months -- a raven he's come to know as Charlie.

"He follows me all over the place, he even knows where I live," said Haaima.

"He flies right beside my window on the driver's side. When an oncoming car comes along, he flies up then swoops back down and flies beside me again. It's something to see. He's keeping an eye on me."

It's a pretty sharp eye at that -- "There's another cab company here and I have four cabs, but he spots me right away," said the six-year resident of Smith.

That works the other way as well. Haaima has come to recognize Charlie, from a tiny bit of white on his chest and a mark on one of his claws, out of the hundreds of ravens in town.

Haaima said his new friend is a constant companion every day, from dawn to dusk. At night, Charlie spends time with his feathered friends.

"It's actually my wife (Patricia) who started it," he said. "She was eating Cheezies and threw some ravens a couple. This one guy just couldn't get enough, I guess. He just kept getting braver and braver."

Soon, Haaima was hand-feeding the raven. Then it started stationing itself on top of his taxi van, occasionally sticking his head down and looking into the cab.

"It got a little messy sometimes," admitted Haaima.

Shortly after that, Haaima trained Charlie to sit on the van's side mirror. That's still Charlie's favourite perch. When the van gets moving too quickly, he jumps off and flies next to the window.

Haaima reports that Charlie likes a lot of different kinds of food, like sunflower seeds and Cheezies, but is crazy for shrimp. Charlie doesn't like corn balls.

The bird now has complete trust in Haaima -- "I can grab his beak and shake his head, anything, and he doesn't mind at all" -- but keeps a safe distance from others.

"He's a smart bird," said Haaima. "And he's trying to talk to me. He gurgles and makes different sounds, it's really weird."

Charlie still hangs around with other ravens. In fact, perhaps due to his fairly steady supply of food from Haaima, Charlie's got a girlfriend.

"I think he's got a female companion, because sometimes what he does now is, I'll give him a cheezie and he'll throw it to her. He just started doing that lately."