A Murder of Crows, An Unkindness of Ravens

***This entry was originally written in mid-June but not posted until today. My personal treatments mentioned below have ceased, though not yet all the torments.***

A quarrelsome murder of crows were going at it hot and heavy just outside our bedroom window this morning. A murder of crows. Lions have their pride, whales a pod, there are herds of cattle and flocks of geese. But a murder of crows? Sounds like something cooked up by Charles Addams or Edward Gorey. It's an inventively macabre description that befits this boisterous crew who always seem to be on the verge of murdering something, most usually one another. 

At any rate, we'd been lying in bed, reluctant to depart the comfort of our nest. After all, it was a rare day blessedly free of doctor's appointments, chemoradiation treatments, telehealth calls and all the pain that these things entail. To be honest, my torture was temporarily blocked by the painkiller I'd taken a few hours earlier. Hence my blissed-out state as I listened to the rancorous cacophony with more interest than it probably deserved. I could easily imagine the bird language communicated through their screeches and wondered how any of these creatures manage to live together in their particular murder without resorting to the actual act. 

Prior to the influx of these creatures, we had a pair of Mourning Doves setting up house on the balcony off the guest bedroom. I loved listening to our beautiful, melancholy Mourning Doves and fervently wished that, this year, they would finally get their nest built and produce some eggs. A dashed hope, alas. Last year, the Blue Jays ran them off but now it appears that the crows have taken the offensive. The jays have also been scarce so I can only assume that the crows took care of them first. While I am not an admirer of crows, I don't go out of my way to piss them off either. Besides, I suppose we owe them a debt of gratitude for repelling the equally noxious Blue Jays, who were constantly befouling our balcony. Just so you know, Blue Jays are kissing cousins of crows, ravens and magpies, but there seems to be no love lost between the lot of them. 

I've often heard that crows recognize and remember people from prior interactions. A couple of days ago, C found a baby crow floundering helplessly in the grass. It had apparently fallen out of the nest and wound up making its way in the opposite direction of the palm tree housing its unruly tribe. Carefully picking up the baby, C placed it beneath the palm in hope that the bird's parents might find it. His good deed was accompanied by a chorus of hysterical voices that quickly took shape and dive-bombed him from out of the palm fronds. I mention this simply because it is my fervent hope that C's intentions were not misconstrued by these birds. I understand that the ire of a murder of crows knows no bounds. 

 

In some communities, crows and ravens are seen as harbingers of death and bad luck. Like the parrot, both can be trained to "talk", although I've yet to carry on an actual conversation with one. What would a crow say anyway, I wonder?  "Get the fuck away from my palm tree!", perhaps? It surely would not be a friendly chat between species, although I might learn a thing or two about how to better live within a community--or country--that is always squabbling. 

It's too bad we don't have ravens down here in our neck of the woods. They are called an unkindness of ravens, by the way, but I like them and didn't find the ones we saw at the Tower of London to be unkind at all. In fact, they were much less disagreeable than our run-of-the-mill crows here in Florida. Of course, those ravens in London are the only ones I've ever encountered but I was captivated by them. They are huge--2 feet in length or more--but also curious and (seemingly) collected; at any rate, ravens don't seem to be all that argumentative. It bears mentioning that the Tower ravens are pampered and live luxurious lives compared to other species of birds. They are regularly fed--sometimes with fresh road kill--by their keepers (the Yeoman Warders and a Ravenmaster) and given free reign of the grounds. Granted, it's the grounds where the two young princes, Edward V and his brother Richard, were allegedly held pending their deaths at the hands of their uncle, the Duke of Gloucester (later, King Richard III). And, of course, the repellant Henry VIII famously dispatched two of his six wives (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard) there, along with (a very deserving) Thomas Cromwell, and a host of other high-ranking officials. It is estimated that Henry VIII executed anywhere from 54,000 to 72,000 people during his reign, although not all of them at the Tower. 

300 years later, Poe's classic poem, The Raven, contributed to both the mystery and the haunting quality of these elusive birds. Since I am drawn to all that is mysterious and potentially unknowable, I am a big fan of ravens, unkind and otherwise. Though not so much the crows, who seem to be living up to their reputation of bringing bad luck. If I could say one thing to them it would be, "Please take your murder and move somewhere else." Hopefully they'd understand and obey, although I'm not holding my breath.