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.
Once the nutty attractions of the Hazelnut Happening are exhausted the crows still just wanna have fun — and seem to know it’s now time for the …
Dogwood Disco
A temporary evening scene of colour and sound, the Dogwood Disco is a kaleidoscope of rosy berries, golden leaves, flapping black wings and excited crow calls.
The whole thing lasts for under half an hour between the arrival of the party guests and their departure for the roost just before sunset. They leave behind a bit of a red carpet situation on the sidewalk …
Dogwood trees run for several blocks along Charles Street and, for some reason, the crows seem to start at the west end and, each evening, move a little to the east. They leave quite a lot of berries uneaten. Some sort of mysterious crow etiquette … ?
Perhaps they’re leaving some of the berries for the humans. Apparently they are edible, though from what I’ve read, it would take quite a lot of work to make something palatable from them. These are Kousa dogwoods, and apparently the pulp of the berries tastes a little like persimmon, but to get to that, you first have to deal with a bitter skin and a lot of hard seeds within the fruit. If you’re interested in doing a little urban foraging, I found this helpful blog post with some tips from T. Abe Lloyd. He aptly describes the berry as “a pink soccer ball on a stick.”
You could also view them as teeny, crow-sized disco balls!
And here’s what the blooms look like in early summer when the street is a river of white …
But back to the crows …
They are clearly undeterred by any finicky concerns about bitter skin or seeds as they dig in for their evening snack, which seems to be as much competition as fine dining.
The leaves are still so thick on the branches, it often looks as if the crows are swimming along the surface to get to their prize.
Almost there …. I can already taste it!
Sometimes the berries are consumed in the tree, while others prefer a more stable surface for consumption.
Unless there’s too much competition …
Giving new meaning to the phrase “Fall Launch.”
Like the Hazelnut Happening, it seems that the event is partly about food but, like all good parties, it’s about much more — mixing and mingling, marking the end of summer, and teaching those fledglings about group etiquette — all while making as much noise and mess as possible. Woohoo!
Over the course of a week they seem to be getting the the eastern edge of the dogwood feasting area, so I’m not sure how many more nights they’ll be stopping. I expect there’s probably another important Crow Fest venue in their fall itinerary but, if there is, it must be out my walking range.
Who knows where they’re headed next, but keep your eyes open — it might be your neighbourhood!
Just look at how grown up and fully crow-like he is already!
It’s been about twelve weeks since I first saw Lucky out of the nest, and he’s come such a long way since those first helpless days.
The first time I saw Lucky, back on June 11
Now that he’s going to the mix and mingle at the roost every night, I can’t help thinking he must be starting to feel the temptation to fly off to see the world with some fellow teen crows.
On Monday and Tuesday of this week I didn’t see or hear him at all, so I was beginning to think that was that for our little family of three.
Marvin and Mavis having a quiet morning to themselves
But no — it seems he’s not quite ready to ditch those training wheels yet. As grown up as he’s looking now, he (or she, just a guess at this point) is wise enough to know he’s still safer when mom and dad have his back.
In the photo below, Lucky looks just like a fully independent crow coming for snacks, but further investigation reveals a watchful mom, waiting in the wings in case of emergency.
I think she’s also making sure he’s following all the protocols he’s been taught over the past few weeks:
look left, look right, look up, look down, look left again and right again and up again, etc.before taking a moment to grab a snack … and repeat
grab the highest value snack items first in case this is your only chance
dunk snacks in water to add hydration boost
pack beak and gullet with maximum efficiency before take off
Nice work, but remember, look left, right, up …
Efficient snack packing starts with careful planning
I noticed that the constant begging (feed me, feed me, feed me) sounds that filled the air all summer have recently ceased.
The photo below, taken on August 18, was the last time I witnessed Lucky begging from his parents — and you can see the somewhat cynical and unobliging look he’s receiving in response.
He still calls for his parents, but it’s more of an “I’m here. Are you there?” type of communication.
From a distance, Lucky looks just like a grown up crow.
His eyes are no longer grey or blue — they’re now close to the same brown as an adult crow.
The pink gape at the side of his mouth is now quite subtle when his beak’s closed.
Still goofy, but then aren’t all crows, regardless of maturity?
However, as soon as he opens his mouth, especially when the sun hits it, that pink gape lights up like a stained glass window!
His mouth HAS been open a lot this week — not for begging purposes, but for keeping cool in the ongoing hot weather.
Aside from expelling heat via the open beak, he also sits with his wings held out from his body to let the heat out that way too, and catch any hint of a cooling breeze — just like mom and dad showed him.
I have so many photographs of Lucky now — partly because he’s so darn photogenic and partly because there are weirdly few other bird models around at the moment. That’s another, rather anxious, story for another day.
Suffice to say, at this point I have so many pictures of Lucky, he could easily have a calendar all to himself.
I have to stop and watch and photograph every time I spot him because I can’t shake the feeling that each time might be the last.
Of course, I’d be so thrilled if Lucky turned out to be one of those fledglings that sticks with mom and dad to help out and learn the ropes of nesting next year, but I can hardly bring myself to hope for that much.
Any day now he could decide to take off to complete his crow-ducation at a faraway institute of corvid higher learning.
I just hope he’ll remember to look left, right, up, down etc and to always take the good bits first.
