Crow: Talking the Talk

Crow: Talking the Talk
Crow in flight, wings spread as it lifts off the ground near a chain link fence

The CROW EXPERIMENT worked! I SPOKE CROW and the CROW LISTENED.

There’s a highly sensitive, easily agitated crow on our street this spring. I’ve been watching it since April, when it bashed the back of my head. Yesterday it shrieked and flapped at me. When I paused to scold back, it flew at my head again.

So I resolved…if this bird threatens me again, I will turn around and calmly speak in its language. Ten years ago in Nova Scotia I listened to crows converse in words and sentences. I haven’t forgotten the guttural click-clack sounds of their words.

So when the crow screamed today, pumping its chest and wings, I stopped walking. I turned to look at it. Then I clicked and clacked a string of sounds. And then another. The bird calmed down immediately.

Probably all I said in crow language was, “feed the pumpkin in your grab bag” or something equally nonsensical. But clearly this bird gave me full marks for effort.

What a great encounter to mark the beginning of the home stretch on the Animal Torah book!!!

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Want to learn more about these birds? Here are some great resources. (1) Dr. Kaeli Swift’s Corvid Research blog. (2) Dr. John Marzluff & Dr. Tony Angel’s book In the Company of Crows and Ravens. (3) My account of the nest in our backyard. (4) And a little something about the biblical bird orevbest translated into English as “corvid.”

Photo: Crow lifting off at Little Mountain baseball field, Hillcrest Community Centre. Photographer: Laura Duhan-Kaplan. Taken with an iphone 8.

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