It’s spring, according to the birds, although otherwise it’s hard to tell it from the previous four months of damp and drear. And that means we’re getting ready for nest-building, and drowned peonies, and the annual ant infestation; and people will tell each other earnestly that they really didn’t mind the cold all winter but this is just ridiculous, and some people will be moved to open a vein just to see some color. And soon our dominant crow population will undergo its seasonal Tourette’s. I’m a fan of crows. They’re sleek and smart and they don’t skitter at all when you walk by, just adjust their swagger to throw you the stink-eye over their shoulder. They even use tools, such as our friend Bob Smith, who will crack their walnuts if they bring him one, and they’re particularly impressive when attending a platter of possum in the middle of the road. They’ll eye that Buick coming up the pike and they’ll calculate the angle of compaction and they’ll hop two inches to one side and let the Buick tenderize the possum, and then they’re right back on it. Crows have a long association with humans and many have picked up odd jobs as spirit companions. I talk too much to attract a spirit companion, but would be happy to audition a crow as a sidekick. Except for the seasonal Tourette’s, which gets on my nerves.
It’s just like when a new family moves in down the way and you can’t figure out where they’re from, but they’re not from around here; and all you know is that they’re diverse and need embracing, but the best you can do is smile, because they just say “ock ock” and smile back, and all is well for a while. But they’re always cooking something that smells sour and weird and drifts through the air, and then they start accumulating car parts in the back yard and sofas on the porch and before you know it there are thirty of them in there, and they keep the windows open and the weird smell comes out and all thirty of them are yelling “ock ock” all day and all night, and you’re a big liberal and can’t figure out any way of communicating nicely that we don’t “ock” in the middle of the night in this country, and your face hurts from smiling in an inauthentic but embracing manner while you are actually thinking that your fellow shotgun-wielding countrymen might have more economy in their reasoning than you’d given them credit for. It’s like that with the crows, when they’re having their seasonal Tourette’s.
Crows vocalize in a number of ways, most of them raucous, but I don’t mind. It suits them. They are even able to mimic human speech if they’ve got the notion. Sometimes they all yammer away when they’re gathering in a tree or taking off again, and then they settle down. But once a year they all go off at once and all day long for weeks on end, and it’s just like listening to O’Reilly when he’s got some poor academic on the show who thought he might be able to slide a point in edgewise–you know they aren’t listening to each other. If they were mimicking people it would be all hey hey hey hey dude dude hey hey hey hey hey. Might as well teach trees to bark. I swear.
Our local crows have tourette's all year and fly around saying pharque, pharque, pharque. But since I would often like to swear more loudly myself I can't blame them. And when they swagger across the lawn fixing other birds with the evil eye they have real charm. Glad to know someone else has a soft(ish) spot for them.
Shhh, it's nearly 6:30 am and my son knows not where his notebook is at this moment. As my bad electrical karma continues, and am trying to go to my favorite places for a good just plain loud guffaw, I made it here and a strange little box popped up saying STACK OVERFLOW LINE 1. EEK? If you never hear from me again it will be because my apparently negatively charged body blew up the last funtional electronic device in this house, and my son hid the body…. :}
So that's why a group of them is called a Murder. Once a year you think, "Why, I oughta…" and ponder a rifle purchase.
Crows: "many have picked up odd jobs as spirit companions." Hey, I resemble that remark… 🙂
I love this post. I'm beyond grateful for the insightful hilarity you bring to the world, which goes especially good with a morning cup of coffee. While we sleep, you find ways to make us happy and I thank you. Truly.
Caw!
hi Murrr, nice to meet you! its a battle of the ants here too. Funny post, enjoyed it!
//Might as well teach trees to bark//
I really like that idea!!! it sure would surprise a buncha dogs, dontcha think?
there's a really friendly maple down the block from me, I think I'll start with her and see how this goes!!
Crows seem a tad rowdy to qualify as spirit companions, but O'Reilly should get one as a co-host.
Ants are, at least, silent — and no one seems to feel any obligation to be "liberal" about them moving in.
I love your writing, Murr. Another excellent post.
As a corvid obsessive you're ocking my tune, of course. A friend, who knows how my mind works, sent me a quote yesterday that was so appropriate I put it at the bottom of my sidebar: Our minds are like crows. They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them. ~ Thomas Merton
Best post ever; so funny! I can't even pick out a favorite line to reference here except every single one. 🙂
I think it's sad how liberal and color blind many of us are until THAT family moves in next door and we suddenly discover that maybe cultural differences do separate us more than we'd like to admit, after all.
Here in Texas we have Disney-esque buzzards who are our carrion road crew. Sometimes they don't calculate the speed of cars too well (Texas in its infinite wisdom raised the speed limit on some roads to 85) and they end up roadkill themselves.
Back in the 1950's in California, my brother had a friend who had a pet crow, Joe. (Yeah, Joe the Crow.) When the kid rode his bike down the street, Joe used to fly alongside at shoulder level. I think California crows say "dude, dude, dude!"
I can't say I'm fond of crows, but you have to admire their moxie.
Always a pleasure to read one of your posts.
♥Spot
We've had a family of crows living in our trees for years. Each spring a pair brings a young one to introduce to the railing on our deck. They know they're part of our recycling.
When I see hundreds of the guys flying southeast near dusk, I assume they're off to a nocturnal convention of some kind. I'd love to see where that is.
There was some small family market somewhere in Portland where this crow would hang out on a sign just above the door. When people would come out of the store, the crow would hang upside down and squawk, thereby frightening the departing shoppers who would drop their grocery bags, wherein Carmichael (they named him) would drop to the pavement and grab whatever spilled delicacy the incident afforded.
(Note, this story was told to me, I cannot independently vouch that it is true – but it sure seems like something a crow would do.)
I love crows, especially their swagger!
I love crows. I don't mind their raucous calls at all…….they are more pleasing to the ear than any of the so-called music that has been foisted on us for the past 10 or 20 years.
They are very intelligent, loyal and beautiful….my kind of bird.
Ooops….I forgot to say the most important thing……love your blog!
Puts me in mind of this(from deepthoughtsbyjackhandey.com:
Sometimes it seems as if the crows are calling my name, said Caw.
"You can whitewash a crow, but it won't last."
Well, if the crows become too annoying, sick a mockingbird on them. Mockingbirds are the most aggressive birds I've ever seen, and I've witnessed them torment crows, squirrels, and hawks (!).
We don't have any mockingbirds here, but we've got some hummingbirds with attitude. I like crows just fine. Sometimes they just talk too much. You know? You know? You know? You know?
I thought I was a social oddity until I read this post. I like crows so much I bought three large black crows at Halloween and perched them on top of my bookcases in the family room. It is interesting to note how people dropping by eye them, and then go on with the conversation, but act a little differential thereafter.
When the dog and I are alone in the huge cornfield down the road, I yell back at the corvidae. They do that little hollow throat rattling sound when they are with their family unit so I tried doing that at them the other day when they were cawing at us. Shut them right up. I think I might have been saying the F-bomb in corvus. But just so I didn't get cocky (cawky?), they set up a right royal squawk at us shortly after. You can't outcrow a crow.
"They'll eye that Buick coming up the pike and they'll calculate the angle of compaction and they'll hop two inches to one side" Not always, Murr…
We were vacationing on Prince Edward Island two years ago when a crow, despondent over his girlfriend's rejection, committed suicide by flying directly into the grill of our oncoming Dodge Grand Caravan (either that, or the sun was in his eyes). Jim still feels guilty, because we have those 85 bird feeders in our back yard. He always honks the horn when he sees birds on the road in front of us now…
Fun post!
Wendy
Our crows/ravens (verona) stay all winter and do the huge flock nutbar cawing periodically, especially in fall. They have all scattered now to start nesting, I guess. They are very clever for sure. the cat gives them a wide berth.
Obviously you haven't heard about the Crowsanostra. The Godfeather assembles his lieutenants, those cocky hoods in the shiny black jackets, and tells them to check out the latest generation of soldiers. They are usually assigned to sit somewhere and yell something at required intervals. Like 27 times an hour for three days. Some of them will yell twenty seven times in a row, and then wait an hour. Others will yell constantly for hours on end, because they can't count. Some get sore throats and just sit muttering seditiously. Some forget what they're supposed to yell and, seeing girl crows in the vicinity, start hollaring, "Hey baybee! Looking good! Bring that ovah heah. Hey baybee! . . ." Spring is usually the crow version of Jersey Shore. Which one is Snookie?
What do they say to each other? What keeps them repeating the same words over and over to each other….and to us? Is it some kind of automativ thing, or communication?
There is a huge group of crows that fly over my house every night in Vancouver! Here is the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QuEjaG4Ghs. Seriously it's the craziest bunch of birds you've ever seen. And they fly like this every night at sunset.
Hi Samantha! Great video. It would be the craziest bunch of birds if I'd never seen starlings in a murmuration.
I dunno, Jerry, but they're definitely up to something.
Love crows, the way they sit in a bare tree against the blue sky on a winter day. The ones in our neighborhood like to pick up dried up bread or doughnuts and dunk them in my birdbath to soften them up. Like ladies at tea or kids with oreos and milk. They leave a mucky mess, but they are welcome to dunk anyway.
My favorite author, Charles deLint, has a couple of recurrent characters in his novels named the Crow Girls. Sometimes they're crows, sometimes they're girls. The way he has them speak makes me laugh until I cry sometimes.
Hmmm. I need to go read one of those again…
Crows are amazing birds in so many ways. A man I was in relationship with had a crow for years. The stories he told me were so impressive, including times the crow played tricks on him. Years after
lifeintheboomerlane, you left us hanging. Did you leave him hanging, too?
"open a vein just to see some color" – love that line! This reminded me of a bird problem I had a couple years ago (attacking my house) and was contemplating a pellet gun. My wife said "wait, aren't those endangered?". I said, "that one sure as hell is."
tjhighpoint, I had the same problem. I had a flicker hammering away on my house. I came up with a whole different solution.
I'm relieved that I'm not alone as a liberal that appreciates a lack of diversity in my neighborhood. Ock.
Ii was rather expecting a comparison between crows constant cawing and the bickering over the budget, especially with the title Cawcus and was quite surprised even knowing your birdwatching fancy.
I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of our local crows. They start chattering at dawn when I really don't want to be hearing crows. But rather them then our local mockingbird who has the repertoire of a wedding band, without the chance to get drunk and dance with hunky groomsmen.