Crows

To begin, let me say that I love Crows. They charm and delight me. Their intelligence, humor and hi-jinx impress me. Their stark black beauty dazzles me, and their survival skills inspire me. They are the embodiment of Tom Robbins’s philosophy, “joy in spite of everything.” I had a foster son many years ago who brought home a baby Crow that had fallen from its nest and would surly have died. It lived with us, uncaged, in my second story apartment until it could fly. I fed it cat food from my little finger, which it impaled into its craw. As the little Crow grew, it would half-fly to my shoulder with loud baby Crow cries until I could get the food out and ready for him. The Crow had free range of the apartment. For those few months, it was an integral part of the household. He had favorite songs, favorite hiding places and favorite people. He was a constant source of entertainment—finding shiny things—earrings, money…anything that suited his fancy, and hiding it. He enjoyed arranging things in particular order. He was intelligent, loved games, and I swear he laughed when he put a particularly complex prank over on us. As he grew and learned to fly, his adolescent voice grew louder and his food begging more insistent, though by then he had his own constant supply. Wild Crows had spotted him through the window and had taken to lining rooftops of nearby buildings trees and calling loudly to him; calls which he ignored. One early morning, after a particularly late night with friends, he woke me with his hungry caws. Blurry eyed, I got up and he flew, wide-mouthed to my shoulder for food. I fed him than started preparing for a brunch gathering I had planned. Though he was fed, he wouldn’t leave me alone, wanting to ride on my shoulder, caw in my ear, and generally pester me. Annoyed, I opened the second story window and set him on the ledge then closed the window while I cooked. The outside Crows grew more frenzied and raised a thunderous cacophony that echoed through the neighborhood. My Crow flew away and never returned. People have told me that the wild Crows would have killed him, but I prefer to believe that he became a great leader of Crows. The magnificent Crow King whose legend lives in the hearts of all Crows. I mourn him still.

The past two days can best be summarized in two words: disturbed Crows. Yesterday, Sadie and I were driving to the Magnuson dog park, taking side streets to avoid the long stoplights that have appeared on nearly every corner of major Seattle streets. Just as I crested a hill, I came upon a black cloud of screaming Crows. They lined every wire, every rooftop and every tree. All were leaning in wide-beaked consternation toward a particular manicured front yard. The horrifying scene shocked me to the core—a small hawk had a Crow pinned to the ground and was in the process of killing it, oblivious of the ear shattering screams of the surrounding Crows. The hawk had the Crow in its talons, with its wings spread over it to hold the black struggling body down and was tearing at the Crow with its beak. The hawk wasn’t much bigger than a grown Crow. I wanted to stop and help, but a car was directly behind me and there was no place to pull over. The sight will forever haunt me.

The second disturbed Crow event happened early this morning. I woke up to the same agitated Crow screams as accompanied the hawk incident. I have bird feeders in front of my window next to the sidewalk. Over the summer, I’ve fed a pair of Crows, and if I see them in the window when there is no food, I toss them well-aimed pieces of bread. They drink and dunk the bread in the birdbath near the feeders and have come to trust me. The cries that awoke me this morning were not friendly food begging caws; they were definitely agitated and loud. A dozen or so others had joined the usual pair of Crows. All were leaning, wide beaked toward my window. With visions of yesterday’s violent scene, I steeled myself for more horror and went outside. Nothing seemed amiss. Mystified, I came back in and suddenly saw the source of their rage. I had put a realistic life-sized Crow replica in the front window for Halloween. Apparently, they thought one of their own had been captured. I immediately removed the provocation from the window and tossed some bread pieces out as penance. The Crows weren’t so easily assuaged; however, they refused the offering and continued their strident recriminations for about a half an hour more. There is an upside to the story: certainly, the upscale inhabitants of the new half-million dollar townhouses surrounding me—the ones who complain about the “Crow problem” --were awakened on this Saturday dawn by a scene reminiscent of Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” May they be visited by vivid dreams of the Crows’ Revenge and may I once again be graced by the company of glossy black Crows.