An Ode to the Crow
(Inspired by Wyatt)
by David Stalling
I love crows. Not in the casual "Oh, that's a neat bird" kind of way. I mean I genuinely enjoy having them around. If I had to choose between living in a place with songbirds and a place with crows, I'd take the crows every time.
Part of it is that crows seem less like birds and more like feathered people. They have personalities. They hold grudges. They play games. They solve problems. They recognize faces. They teach their young.
Scientists have discovered that crows can remember individual humans for years. If you mistreat a crow, it may remember you long after you've forgotten the encounter. Worse, it may tell its friends.
Imagine that. A bird with a gossip network.
They are among the smartest animals on Earth. They use tools. They can solve complex puzzles. They understand cause and effect. Some have even demonstrated the ability to plan ahead, a trait once thought to belong almost exclusively to humans and a few other highly intelligent mammals.
And they're fast.
When a crow takes off with a purpose, it looks like it has somewhere important to be. They're aerodynamic, agile, and capable of incredible aerial maneuvers. I've watched crows harass hawks, eagles, owls, and just about anything else that enters their territory. They have absolutely no respect for rank.
A bald eagle may be our national symbol, but I've seen plenty of eagles being chased across the sky by angry crows.
History has not always been kind to them.
For centuries, crows and ravens have been associated with death, bad luck, battlefields, and dark omens. Their black feathers and habit of showing up wherever humans gathered made them easy targets for superstition. They became symbols of doom in folklore across Europe and beyond.
But if you think about it, the crow never asked for that job.
People saw a highly intelligent scavenger making a living wherever it could and decided that somehow the bird was responsible for the bad things it happened to witness.
The Vikings, however, had a different perspective.
The Norse god Odin was accompanied by two crows, Huginn and Muninn—Thought and Memory. Every day they flew across the world gathering information and returning to whisper what they had seen into Odin's ears.
That seems much closer to the truth.
If there is a bird that symbolizes intelligence, curiosity, and awareness, it's the crow and its larger raven cousins. (See “An Ode to the Raven”) They are the observers. The reporters. The feathered detectives of the natural world. They watch everything.
Sometimes I get the feeling that crows know more than they're willing to admit.
What I admire most about them, though, is their resilience.
Humans have poisoned them, trapped them, shot them, blamed them for everything from crop damage to bad luck, and yet they continue to thrive. They have adapted to cities, farms, forests, suburbs, and just about every landscape we've thrown at them.
They're survivors.
While many species struggle to coexist with us, crows seem to have figured us out. They understand our routines. They exploit our mistakes. They use our infrastructure. In many ways, they've adapted to human civilization almost as successfully as humans have.
There's something admirable about that.
When I hear a crow calling from a cottonwood tree or watch a group of them gathering on a winter evening, I don't think of death or bad omens. I think of intelligence, persistence, and wildness. I think of a creature that has shared our world for thousands of years and has somehow managed to stay one step ahead of us.
And frankly, I enjoy knowing they're out there. Watching. Judging. Probably laughing at us.
And honestly, they're usually right.
I too have always loved Crows and Ravens. Thanks for writing and sharing this.
There is a Woodland area near where I live set apart by a road on the north that goes into the Rattlesnake wilderness parking lot, Rattlesnake Drive on the east, a irrigation ditch on the west, and a bridge over the ditch on the south. It’s about 5 acres or more.
One day, my dogs and I set off down the trail through this Woodland. Crows were everywhere in the trees. They were talking they were talking a lot.
When we entered, they all fell silent. I felt like an invader. We quietly walked through. I think it might’ve been a funeral. When we reached the little bridge to the south out of that Woodland, I strained to hear if they would start talking again. But not wanting to be obnoxious I kept walking. The dogs were unusually sticking to the trail not stopping to smell anything.
Yes, it was a funeral.