Monday, January 03, 2022

On Crows


 Painting by Deborah Stock.

I like that they scream at me if I leave my building on my way to the car when I don't have any food for them that particular day. I have no idea how they sense it's me in my brief hike of ten steps from the door to the handicapped spot as I unlock the car door. But they assemble, waiting. Patient. A little frightening. No wonder their collective noun is a murder of crows. They sound as if they could like to murder me. Above me, they gossip in their language. Chastising, berating. Reminding me to buy the bag of peanuts. When I do distribute their preferred food choice they (I like to think) drop a fir cone near my car. A gift, an encouragement. An odd white feather (a murdered gull?) another day.

I have a few crow stories

And yes, I love them, their intelligence, their fearless behaviour on streets and parking lots, eyeing cars, dodging them, their massive assembly at night before they take off to various rookeries. The way they quickly learned to imitate the gulls in front of my house by catching oysters and mussels and dropping them from great heights onto the rocks to break them open.

8 comments:

  1. You have crows. We have mynah birds. They are all the same, eh? Happy new year to you and your family.

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  2. I adore the corvid family. We have a family of bearded ravens visiting at the moment and I feel privileged. I am privileged.
    And that painting is an absolute stunner.

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  3. I like crows, we have many in our neighborhood. They sure are loud and intelligent. They do sit on wires above my car and splatter it a couple times a week with white.

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  4. The are incredibly clever aren't they. I wonder if your crows have the same piteously mournful call.

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  5. I like crows. We had great numbers at the feeders, when I had feeders.

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  6. I love crows and feed them mealworms when they come down to my lawn, but they haven't done that for quite a while now. I fed magpies yesterday and only one came down today, but I expect more will be back when it is nesting season and they have babies to feed.

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  7. That is another thing that is common between us. I too love crows despite their noisiness. I have a couple of friends who greet and converse with me every morning when I sit out in our garden with my morning mug of tea. I don't feed them anything and they don't expect anything. They just seem to be happy to greet and be in my presence. As soon as I get up to go back inside they too disappear.

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  8. Crows are extremely smart and yes, I like them too.

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