This is an excellent time of year for studying crow calligraphy.
Their inky brush strokes are never more distinct than when scrawled across the blank parchment of a pale grey Vancouver winter sky.
The bulletin can be simple — “yup, it’s grey and boring down there in the human world, but every day is an adventure for us crows!”
Yahoo!!!
Often though, the fleeting sight of a crow in an urban setting seems like a cypher — a key to de-coding a much bigger message.
As we dash around in the city it’s sometimes possible to forget that nature even exists.
Even if I try my hardest to feel connected, so many things can seem to stand in the way; the constant metropolitan hum-m-m of sound; getting from A to B; worrying about paying bills, meeting deadlines, not getting run over; the latest news …
I know there’s another storyline beyond it all — one that I really need to pay more attention to.
I know I’d feel better if I could tune into it, but can’t for life of me quite remember how it all fits together.
It’s like a neglected language.
One I’ve never been fluent in.
I’m sure I once knew how to hold a rudimentary conversation, but now the grammar eludes me.
Then, one random day, I look up and see four crows rolling and tumbling in the sky and then snapping back into a purposeful formation.
For reasons I can’t understand it brings to mind just one key bit of the syntax.
Like stumbling across part of a cypher to that complicated secret message — never quite enough information to crack it entirely, but offering a glimpse.
Everything does not suddenly make sense — but I am at least reminded that the other language exists.
I still don’t see the answers, but there’s a certain joy now in the not knowing.
I hope to spend more time in 2023 paying attention to, and working with, crow calligraphy.
In the many years I’ve been photographing and following crows I had never actually had one make physical contact — until this week.
It was predictable in two ways.
It’s THAT Time of Year.
I never get close to being dive bombed in nesting season, which you’d think would be the riskiest season of all.
Nope, it’s early fall, when the local crows are giddy with new freedom, that seems to be the most perilous time for me. The adult crows are free of parental responsibility and the young crows are (literally) spreading their wings and testing the limits of what they can get away with.
These crows, the young and the restless, are unbound by the conventions of who’s territory is whose and general good manners.
My tactics at this time of year include suspending Peanut Diplomacy until the rowdy phase passes. Sometimes I even change my walking route if things are getting too disorderly.
This year’s bonus challenge is …
Dennis the Menace*
Meet Dennis: he is a 2021 fledgling of Pearl and Echo’s. He (or she) has stayed with mom and dad since then. There were no new fledgling this year, so Dennis is a pampered only child.
Crow Without A Pearl Earring — portrait of Pearl
Above is Pearl, so named because she often reminds me (in a corvid way) of Vermeer’s portrait, Girl With A Pearl Earring.
Anyway, Dennis the Menace (or possibly Denise the Menice) has always been a little bit cheeky, following me to the end of his family’s territory and often swooping very close — enough for the occasional rush of wind from a wing against my face. While last year he was kind of scrawny and generally stayed close to his parents, this year he seems to be full of boundless confidence.
Perhaps a little too much confidence …
He keeps a close eye on me as I walk by.
Dennis … and a few of his closest friends (none of them being his parents) following me beyond the normal Pearl family territorial boundaries …
I’m used to Dennis swooping after me, wondering where his peanuts are, and I usually turn around in time so that he’ll swerve off to left or right.
Crows, according to crow scientist John Marzluff, won’t fly at you from the front and he recommends affixing fake eyes to the back of your hat if necessary.
A couple of days ago Dennis actually managed to make contact. I think it was the touch of a claw on the back of my head. Very light and no damage done, but it just shows what a determined little character this particular crow is. No meanness on his part, just a spot of over-enthusiasm.
What worried me much more than Dennis was a time when another clever crow, realizing that swooping close to me didn’t faze me, started to try and find my Achilles heel by flying at Geordie from behind. Geordie (my dog) has always been extremely relaxed around crows, but it would only take one crow landing on his back to change all that — forever!!! Luckily he never noticed how close the crow got as I managed to turn around in time to ward off actual contact and we changed walking route for a couple of weeks, just in case.
Back to Dennis. We had a good talk last time I saw him and he hasn’t managed to catch me out over the last few days. I also turn around a lot when I’m in his neighbourhood.
I was recently thinking of taking up my needle felting again to make some new birds, but now I’m wondering if I should first felt myself a couple of large “eyes” for the back of my head!
Dennis The Menace
* when I gave the name Dennis the Menace, I’m thinking (and giving away my age in saying so) about the comic strip, Dennis and Gnasher, from the UK children’s comic, the Beano — very popular in the 50’s.
Although my last post was about how miserable the local crows are as they go through their annual moult, don’t feel too bad for them — this season is also their most social and joyful.
Several things come together in the the crow world to make fall time the best time:
Parent crows are mightily relieved that their fledglings are (mostly) independent
Fledgling crows, like teenagers everywhere, are busting to get out there, meet their peers and show off a little
Crows, even the still-moulting ones, look fabulous in the golden fall light and glowing autumn leaves
There are feasting opportunities/excuses for crow parties all over town
Crow Fest in our neighbourhood begins with …
The Hazelnut Happening
Around the autumn equinox a couple of local hazelnut trees become ripe, and many crows seem to have this date carefully noted in their social calendar. Hundreds of them, and dozens of intrepid squirrels, show up for the event every year.
A few years back a human bravely tried to harvest their share of nuts, wisely wearing a bicycle helmet as protection from the competition. This year, even more wisely, they seem to have left it all for the wildlife.
Normally the crows fly over our neighbourhood at dusk, headed to the roost a few miles east of here with only a few distant caws to mark their passing.
But it’s reliable as clockwork — the very day the hazelnuts are ready, our normally sedate area becomes an evening Crowstock venue, complete with rousing musical accompaniment.
The cawing is accompanied by the random percussion of nuts hitting the tarmac as crows drop them to break the shells.
Bombs Away!
There are other seasonal delicacies on the menu too …
While the raucous crow chaos is the big story here, as with all big events, it’s made up of so many small and personal sub-plots.
I love to pick out small groups or individuals in the crowd and watch them for awhile, trying to parse out the individual stories.
In the seemingly undistinguishable line of crows on the wires, you can often detect a family group — parents and fledglings, or just couples taking a quiet moment in the midst of it all.
The other night I spotted a personal acquaintance on the wires.
White Wing!
I’ve been worried about the Wings as they’ve not been in their usual spot for most of the summer. As if to confirm this was indeed her Wingship, she came down and landed by my feet …
The party rages on, but still full of individual little crow vignettes.
One young, ambitious and agile crow takes a moment to show off the Cirque du Soleil skill set they’ve been working on.
Look, Ma, only one foot!
I’m an a-crow-bat!!!!
Another independently-minded crow in the crowd decides to add a distinctive yip to the chorus of cawing.
A quiet young crow whiles away the time by catching and playing with one of their own recently moulted underfeathers before it floats away on the evening air …
And so the nightly Hazelnut Happening hurtles on for a few days until, finally, the nuts are devoured and relative quietness returns to the ‘hood.
Don’t worry though — the fall festivities are far from over. It’s just time to move on to the Dogwood Disco up the street.
