Just a plain old 'corvus brachyrhynchos'

Standing in the living room with a cup of coffee on this rainy morning, I was watching a couple of crows out there on the street. They weren't doing much. Chatting with each other. Smoking cigarettes. Making lewd comments at passing babes. Making plans for the day. Plans that would include making a lot of noise around the roof vents, offering a vast array of utterances from the trees in the vacant lot next door and, most of all, harassing eagles and ravens. Crows hate eagles and ravens. They do like corn chips, however, as you can see by the picture.

The common crow is a ubiquitous creature almost anywhere on the planet. The only place, to my knowledge, where they are a threatened and protected species is Hawaii. There the equally ubiquitous mynahs have kind of coopted crow nesting areas. Too bad. I prefer crows, in a way.

A while ago I made a reference to crows being the 'bikers' of birds. That works. But, I think they are also the 'mafiosi' of birds. They are dishonest as hell, and will rob you blind if they get the chance. They'll steal from the garden and the picnic table, and won't bat their little black eyes even if you catch them. If you approach them and they are not ready to leave, they will stare back at you from the cherry tree and utter "Fuck you!" in crow talk. Crows are very profane, by the way. They also have accents. This is true. If you were to take a crow from, say, California, and transport him to British Columbia, the California 'dude' crow would die. He would die because he would be shunned. The BC crows would not be able to understand his language. This is true. Crows actually make a different sound from one side of town to the other.

Crows are very smart, too. Probably smarter than we think. And, they fulfill a good service in that they clean up carrion and offal left-right-and centre. They long for a decent road-kill meal at any time. And, since they are not sentimentalists, they don't give a sweet goddamn that the cute little bunny was nailed by some dorky psycho kid driving his low-rider Civic at 40 per over the posted speed. They are grateful to the kid, because he brought them bunny for dinner.

And, crows are family oriented. If you have a death-wish, try tampering with a crow's nest that has chicks in it. You will rue the day. They will not only dive bomb you and attack you, but they won't forget. Weeks later they will be waiting for you up in the trees, and will render your life hell. Oh, and if you find a crow chick that has fallen from the nest, leave it absolutely alone. Walk away. If the parent crows see you handling the chick, to put it back in the nest, they will blame you for the chick's misfortune and will be merciless in their need for revenge. A crow 'contract' on one is a frightening situation.

So, some people are angered by crows. I'm not. I rather like them, and I definitely admire them. And, I mean, what are you going to do about them, anyway. Traditionally you could involve yourself in 'counting crows', or the more ruthless might try to 'stone the crows', but other than that, we just have to live and let live. Oh, and I have the sneaking suspicion that once the human race is wiped off the face of the earth, the crows will join the cockroaches as the only survivors. And the world just might be a better place.