TheBanyanTree: Clamor in the Darkness

[David Rubin]

Which could explain why the collective noun for a whole bunch of crows
is a "murder" of crows!

Dave


On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 12:36 AM, redclay <redd_clay at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
>
>
>