Crows: Avian Provocateurs, Intense, Interesting, Inscrutable.
Crows are intense tenants. They live immediately and loudly nearby, in dense spruce hedges and nests tucked beneath the edges of the projecting Point. They certainly do not consider themselves mere tenants; instead, they act like lords and ladies of the manor, intensely possessive, intensely territorial, and intensely raucous. Intensely everything. They land on the deck railing and strut its length, grandees secure in their entitlements. They decapitate peonies, drop mussel shells and pebbles on the lawn and on the roof before dawn, play with the little collection of beach shells in the garden, and dig enthusiastically in the lawn for whatever.
They perch pretty much wherever they want, in the great spruce trees around the house, in the top boughs of lower spruces, on the hedges, and in the tattered Norwegian Maple, which they regard as their own, where their favored branches are only a few feet above the head of anyone walking near, with dog or camera. Hoarse and harsh cries quickly build to shrieking crescendoes of outrage.
They repel all invaders, real and perceived, both those with malign intent (such as ravens and the occasional eagle actually interested in crow eggs or chicks), and those merely passing nearby (such as transiting eagles). The dog triggers buzzing flybys and swoops and cacophony.
Solo crows drop in on the lawn, the railing, or the roof. They can be silent, intent on harvesting bugs or surveying the scene. But they are inherently mercurial, incapable of stasis and silence for long, and, like the attention-deficit challenged, a single crow can suddenly become a dozen; a silent crow can be suddenly overcome with indignant shrieks, often but not always the result of provocation should a stranger, human or avian, appear.
They are famously intelligent. And assuming self-awareness, they are probably intelligent enough to have a high regard for their own intelligence. In silent study, they seem to be analyzing the motives and threat potential of anything that moves.
They are avian provocateurs, occupying and animating their spaces. Their collective, “murder of crows,” is apt even if their behavior is not, strictly speaking, homicidal. An equally accurate collective would be “mob of crows,” given their ability to form a tribal gang very quickly. They always seem to be up to something, testing limits, attempting mischief.
In appearance they are noir actors from the 1930s and 1940s, mysterious, unpredictable, swaggering with self-importance, little Cagneys or Edward G. Robinsons, guys and molls, in black formal wear, well-dressed mobsters. Their eyes are shiny ebony beads, enigmatic and bottomless pools of obsidian ink, black mirrors that reveal nothing.
Even their play is intense. Aerial displays almost too quick to dissect (a camera helps) are as likely playful (to anthropomorphic human eyes) as serious practice for when inter-species conflict is required.
The crows’ tough talk isn’t just an act or false bravado. When real threats arise, when ravens and eagles need repelling, strident cries summon reinforcements, call-and-response alarms rally the crow community, and the resulting flash mobs can worry eagles and ravens off their perches. The crows’ whirling numbers are usually sufficient to convince invaders they would find it more peaceful elsewhere, and are usually enough to cause eagles to drop out of trees and flap off to quieter perches and visiting ravens to simply leave. A red-tallied hawk several summers ago never even got close to the favored property.
But ultimately a few of the crows, perhaps the same few each time, perhaps some braver than the rest, or perhaps ordinary crow citizens simply provoked into heroics, harass the invaders in flight, counting coup, plucking at wing feathers (one reason it is not unusual to find eagle feathers on the lawn). The resulting aerial confrontations are entertaining, and best studied in retrospect.
So, I give to the American crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos. These images preview what is to come.
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After a lifetime of mainly expressing myself with words, my postings here will mainly rely on images. They will speak for themselves to some extent, but I'll usually add a few comments of explanation. I've taken photographs for decades, since the 1950's, inspired in part by my father's photographic skill. Four years of photo assignments and quality darkroom time eventually gave way to decades of casual and family picture-taking. I re-immersed myself when I left film and turned to digital.