My First Crow

My first American Crow (28 Jan 2015)

Today I had a very strange experience.  I saw my first crow.

OK, I’ve grown up with crows.  Like most Americans, crows are one of the first birds you get to know.  I listed crows as one of the birds I knew for my Wolf cub scout badge back in July 1977.  Crows are everywhere.  They fly over my yard every day.

Which is why it took until today for me to actually see one.  While watching the backyard, four crows flew into the trees above my sparrow slick.  Instead of just noticing them, like I normally would, this time I actually got the binoculars up and looked at them.

And I’ve got to say, it kind of freaked me out!  Here’s a bird I thought I knew.  Common as can be.  I see and hear them practically every day of my life.  But today, looking one in the eyes, I realized I had never really seen one before.

The crow blinked.  It looked around, its coffee-colored eyes both cold and warm at the same time.  I don’t know if I’ve ever really looked at the shape of a crow’s beak before or watched one blink.  The crow in my yard didn’t call, didn’t make a sound.  But somehow staring in its eyes it brought me a message.  From the dark.  From the night.  From aeons in the past.  From its dinosaur ancestors.  From the shamans of a vanished human cultures that have known it for the past 30,000 years in America, and it’s cousins in the Old World for perhaps a million more.

I’m as unsettled as the feathers on the nape of the crow’s neck.  It was not there for me.  And it flew without giving me a thought.  Leaving me behind.  In the snow.  It took something of me with it.  I’m not sure what it was yet.

Crow moving on, 28 Jan 2015