When crows attack

I just read this story about attacking crows on Dave Barry, and I was reminded of my own spotted history with crows.

Once, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was walking home from the grocery story when a crow suddenly swooped down on me threateningly. This did not surprise me particularly; I tended to spend a lot of time looking out of windows back in those days and I had already noticed passers-by being attacked by the local crows. It was probably nesting season or something. The walkers would look shocked, shriek, wave their arms in the air, and behave in generally useless fashion. I pitied them, and worried about the effect such submissive behavior would have on the egos of the aforementioned crows.

So when this bird attacked me, I attacked back. I considered it only fitting. I swung my backpack at it, narrowly missing. This pissed the bird off. It landed itself on a nearby electric wire and glared at me. It attempted another swoop.

I picked up some stones and began lobbing them at it. That'll teach it, I thought. I don't take shit from crows.

So I walked home. The crow followed me. But it didn't get too close.

Ha, I thought. I win.

I got to my house. I entered. I twiddled about, as was my wont, and then I looked out the window.

And there, instead of the single crow I had left behind, were about ten crows, all sitting on a power line, glaring at me through the window.

So okay, that freaked me out a little bit. Crows really are menacing birds, especially when they decide they mean business. And this one had clearly been doing some recruiting. I went outside and shooed them all away.

But as soon as I went back in the house they came back again, with even more numbers. When I looked out the window, there they all were, sitting on the power line, staring at me and cawing.

I couldn't believe it. Since when do crows recruit? Since when do they start plotting vengeance? They're birds, fer' cryin' out loud.

So I shut the blinds.

Every once in a while I would peep out again, and they'd still be there. Just waiting and watching.

Now, at that time, I happened to have a roommate who worked a nightshift. He didn't normally get home until the wee hours of the morning. I was usually asleep by the time he got home, so there was no chance to tell him about the crow business.

I should mention in passing as well that he had a brand new black Ford Probe, of which he was exceedingly proud.

So yes, I went to bed, keeping my crow story to myself and saying nothing to anyone. Why should I have? But the next morning when I awoke I peered out the window, just to make sure that those crows were indeed gone.

They were gone.

But they had taken their revenge. They had splattered my roommate's brand new shiny car from head to foot with bird lard. Tons of it. As in TONS. You could't even see any more of the black paint--it was white with crow crap all the way across.

So just in case there was ever any doubt about whether birds pick their targets when they crap all over something, the answer is yes. Apparently they do.

As I was staring at his car with (I admit) a certain degree of horrified admiration, my roommate came up behind me to see what I was looking at. I won't tell you what he said, but suffice to say that it was bad. I hadn't heard such a blue streak in a very long time. Wow. He was PISSED.

I made sympathetic sounds and otherwise kept my mouth shut. Why make a bad situation worse? But come on--it was pretty funny. And it wasn't MY car. Crows may be able to make a connection between their crap and a person's belongings--pretty canny, if you think about it!--but they didn't know the difference between one home-occupant and another. I certainly wasn't about to clue them in. The crows were apparently satisfied with their job, because they didn't come back to bother me after that.

Heh heh. So maybe I won after all.

So yeah, now I have a certain respect for crows. I mean, come on--what a sense of humor! You gotta be careful when you mess with them--you definitely want to be sure you have a fall guy just in case they take offense. But if you lay your cards right, well, the crows won't let you down.