TheBanyanTree: Clamor in the Darkness

[redclay]

22:12
February 20th, 2007
I-40 at W Wendover Ave
Greensboro, North Carolina


  I parked the rental car in the hotel parking lot and dragged my bags out 
of the trunk of the car. From there I trudged toward the hotel office. My 
shirttail was out, my hair looked like I had just undergone shock therapy, and 
my gait had limp in it.  

   I was bone tired from a 12 hour drive and I was dragging like an overloaded 
tater wagon with a broken axle.  It had been a tough trip so far, and as a 
road warrior I was starting to wonder if the current battle I was in might 
well end in a Pyrrhic victory.   

   I had only one thing on my mind at that point: a comfortable bed.

   As I approached the entrance to the office I suddenly became aware of a 
racket across the narrow road that fronted the hotel.  The noise level was 
louder than the din created by the nearly constant truck traffic on I-40 
behind me. It was, in fact, extremely loud and increasing by the moment.

   The racket I recognized instantly. I had heard it less than a week before 
from my front yard.  I had watched 2 crows chase and dive bomb repeatedly a 
hapless raptor that apparently had violated their rules.   The crows cawed 
incessantly and dove at the hawk with a fervor and pitch that denoted nothing 
less than fury. They continued to harass the large hawk across the morning sky 
until it took refuge in the branches of a bare and ancient sweetgum tree that 
rose 30 feet above the other trees in the greenbelt behind our neighbor's 
house.  

   The crows continued to pursue the hawk, perched themselves on nearby 
branches directly in front and continued to harass the now-very-nervous hawk 
with ear-piercing caws and aggressive posturing in its direction.  Every time 
the hawk would attempt to prepare to fly, the crows would scream and lunge at 
it.  The hawk shifted around but was scared enough that it would stay put.  
How long they kept it up I don't know for sure but I watched them harass the 
hawk for more than 10 minutes before I had to go inside.

   Imagine my surprise to hear that same tone of vocal crow fury in the middle 
of the night in a metro area as I approached the office.   But the noise level 
bouncing off my eardrums at the time was hundreds of times louder than that 
day in my yard and, I'd almost swear, carried hundreds of times more fury. It 
was so loud that I thought about covering my ears to protect my hearing.

   I mentally followed the noise to its source and saw to my amazement what 
appeared to be hundreds of crows circling an open lighted area that was used 
as a car lot.  Within seconds even more joined the riot and the noise grew 
even louder.  

    I couldn't believe my eyes but there was no denying what my ears told me.  
I immediately surmised that a raptor, most likely an owl since it was night, 
had ambushed a sleeping crow in a tree or area where a large flock of crows 
were roosting.  The noise woke the others and, when it comes to crows, there 
is always hell that must be paid for such a egregious mistake.  

   Like the previous episode at my home, these crows didn't let up either. 
They stayed at it for long enough that I gave up and went inside to check in 
the hotel. Before I made that decision though, watching and listening to 
unbelievable level of rage unleashed by the crows, I guessed that somewhere,  
situated below that maniacally bent flock of circling, diving, screaming crows 
with death in their eyes, cowering underneath something no doubt, was an owl 
that by now was firmly convinced that he'd truly messed with the wrong bunch.