There's been a massive invasion of crows in the last few weeks. I've seen them in alarming numbers in fields, on power lines, flying overhead in black waves - enough to make me wonder if Sauron hasn't hired a realtor and started checking out open houses in the area.
Don't get me wrong - I like crows. Their dapper attire, the cocky insouciance of their strut, the cunning intelligence that gleams in their eyes, the raucous joy of their cries - but driving home yesterday, I passed over a kilometer of phone lines festooned with glossy ebony birds. Allowing 6" per bird (yes, I regularly mix metric and imperial measurements, so sue me), that's 6,666 crows (and how's
that for an ominous number?). I've seen several farmers fields a-swarm with black mobs and, last weekend, I drove under a cloud of shadowed wings stretching several miles across the sky.
They don't travel silently, either, do crows. They fill the air with their strident calls, like a rowdy Stanley Cup mob. They swoop and dive erratically, exuberantly, between the passing cars, or swagger imperiously along the shoulder. They exhibit a fearlessness out of all proportion to their size.
As I said, I like crows ... but I don't trust them. I think they're plotting something.
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