Yesterday was a beautiful day here, so we went to the park. Astonishingly, given the sunshine, we had the whole creek-side to ourselves. We marvelled at the vine maple: leaves already unfurling--in the first week of February. We shook our heads at the dimness of robins; American robins really are the most stupid birds I've had the misfortune to encounter. (Oh, okay: I shook my head; Kelley laughed at me shaking my head. We both know that I despise American robins because they're not really robins. They're miserable jumped-up thrushes. They wake me up in the morning. Their 'song' is monotonous and metallic and sets my teeth on edge. But essentially their problem, my problem, is that they're not British. So there you go.)
Then the crows arrived.
Have you ever been in an English town centre when the football trains arrive? One minute everyone is going about their business, the next, a wave of sounds pours between and over the buildings, like a tsunami, like a storm, growing, growing, and then the police appear like harbingers on their horses, everyday citizens vanish, and then the football crowd boils through the streets. The noise is astonishing. They shout, they hurl abuse and vomit, they jeer and catcall...and then they're gone. Citizens reappear, the day continues as normal, but every now again people blink nervously and pause, waiting for everything to change again.
We were watching the water, the sky was blue, the robins were running about mindlessly in the bankside undergrowth. Then the robins vanished. We heard a faint hissing, a stirring of air, and crows streamed across the sky from the south. Then the east. Then the southwest. Like locusts or ants: a flow of black-winged noise, meeting right over the creek valley, turning and jeering and calling and cawing, dropping and flipping and swooping and swirling. Hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands, pouring from all points of the compass except north. Then they began to wheel. Round and round, a huge maelstrom of black feathers, sound fading and growing, fading and growing, then they rushed away north and the sky was blue again.
Kelley looked at me, said, "That was something," and we blinked and the world went on again. The stream burbled. The robins scratted about. The vine maple unfurled a little more. But my mind still itches with the remembered sound.
ETA: Yep, I've talked about crows before. A lot.
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Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteIt took me months to get used to the crows around here. I still have a tendency to look over my shoulder when I walk by one of them looming over me as I walk to my car. I've never seen the football trains some into an English town, but I've seen Hitchcock's "The Birds." The crows around here make me remember it frequently. I just know they are up to something...
jennifer, don't take this to the bank, but there seem to be two distinct sub populations here: bigger blacker crows inland a bit, and smaller ones right by the water. The big ones look much more sinister. To me.
ReplyDeleteI began liking crows when I listened to Joni Mitchell sing "Black Crow" on Hejira. Then in my sophomore year of college I learned that I could "caw" like a crow. I used to crow often in college. I crowed to my friends to get their attention across the campus, crowed out my dorm-room window, crowed because I could. It is a joyously loud and awesome act. Now I rarely crow except by special request from a few long-time friends. Your encounter with crows has reminded me, inspired me to crow tonight!
ReplyDeleteWe rarely see flocks of crows here in Atlanta. Most are solitary or in gangs of two or three. In the spring and fall we do get massive flocks of starlings and blackbirds that descend en noisy masse with hundreds or thousands of birds.
ReplyDeleteThey form a black sea that flows across suburban parks and lawns, checking for seeds and insects. After a bit, the starlings on the leading edge roll back over the flock and settle at the trailing edge. This way, all the birds in the flock get a chance at "fresh" territory. Once everyone's fed, the entire flock rises like a black fog and moves on.
That was such a joy to read.
ReplyDeleteLeslie, Hejira is one of my three favourite Joni Mitchell albums. Gotta go listen to them now.
ReplyDeleteDianne, I remember the first time I saw one of those starling flocks. It seemed almost apocalyptic. Astonishing.
tranceptor, glad you liked it.