Crows know if you’re naughty or nice

American Crows make themselves comfortable just about anywhere. Image courtesy of Junior Libby/all-free-download.com.

The crows have come home to roost in my neighborhood. They do this every autumn and winter, and they don’t do it subtly.

Around 4:00 in the afternoon, hundreds of them flap and caw their way into the treetops, arriving like squadrons of bombers over Dresden. And I use that term “bombers” with good reason, as you might imagine.

The thing is, I like American Crows and their jay cousins, including Blue Jays and the much larger Common Raven found out west. Crows have personality.

Like people, they make and use tools. Apparently, they even recognize human faces. If you ever offend a crow, make sure you wear a mask. Studies show crows will remember your face and tell all the other crows about you so they can make your life miserable by screeching at you whenever you show yourself. Reminds me of high school.

Also like humans, crows will eat damned near anything and live and/or breed just about anywhere in North America, except the deep woods and the icy regions. Their only serious enemy seems to be the West Nile Virus, which usually kills them within a week. But even the deadly virus seems to be having little effect on their numbers. It seems that, again like humans, crows like sex, so when one drops dead, another cracks the egg.

Flocks of crows are called “murders” for reasons that remain somewhat controversial. Personally, I think it’s because they yell bloody murder when they come in to roost in those giant flocks. But no one seems to support my opinion.

Crow flocks are also known as cauldrons, musters and a few other group nouns. My favorite, though, is “a congress of crows.” It brings to mind one of my favorite lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that I like to apply to a certain august national legislative body: “[I]t is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”