One September day as I came out of my house, I noticed ten or fifteen crows congregating on the street. This is a pretty amazing sight, these big black birds strutting around the street, talking to each other in their loud raucous voices. My yellow lab and I were going for a walk. I held onto him closely as we went out to the sidewalk and up the street under the little maples. Then the inevitable happened, a car drove up the street. The birds all flew up into the trees on the other side of the street. All except for one. That one flew into the maple tree above our heads. I looked up and saw him looking down at us. I looked at him and he looked at me. Meanwhile the birds across the street were getting restless. Talking back and forth to each other. Finally I said quietly to the bird above our heads, “you can go now” and he flew off to join the rest of the crows. Then they all left, flying over our heads to join a larger group of crows in the tall trees across the alley. All during our walk and a for while afterwards I noticed the tree tops were full of crows. They were flying everywhere as if making some momentous plans. Then they were gone. I wonder where they all went. Do crows migrate? I’ve seen a few but not many since that day.
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Thank you for the great crow observations. I don't know if they migrate or not ... I'll have to consult my crow book and get back to you on that. I had a strange crow-related incident on my way to work today. I was waiting at the bus stop when I heard something hit the ground about four/five feet away. Totally startled me. I looked at what hit the ground and found it was an unopened package of Kraft cheese and crackers. You know, the ones with the little plastic smearing stick. At first I thought a car driving by must have chucked it out the window, maybe even purposely trying to hit me. But then I noticed a few birds swooped into the scene, two gulls and two crows making a huge noise of cawing and yelling. That's when it came to me - this package had been dropped out of the sky by one of the birds. No idea which one, but my brain quickly devised a story in which the gulls (or crows) had come upon this unopened treasure. The crows (or gulls) also spotted the treasure and bullied the prize away from the gulls. The pair of crows took off but the gulls tailed them, maybe even attacked the Kraft-yielding crow mid-air. So the food that almost hit me must have been dropped by one of the birds. It's possible that the crows dropped the prize in the road in front of me so a car would drive by and tear it open, but those things can easily be opened by a four year old human, so I'm pretty sure the crows would have no problem opening their cracker/cheese prize. I'm guessing it was dropped while being pursued by the other pair of birds. Anyway, it was weird. It was raining Kraft Cheese and Crackers in North Portland this morning. And I had to get on the bus, so I don't know how the story ended!
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