I was woken up at 5AM by a murder (I never fail to find that funny) of crows dive-bombing my house to run an owl out of the neighborhood.
It was un-freaking-believeable. On the second floor of my house I have a series of windows that look over the valley and my neighbor’s roof. One crow was sitting on my neighbor’s chimney, sort of heaving with every squawk and I could actually see more crows flying in from across the valley. At the time, I had no idea what was going on, being woken up from a dead sleep and all, but I could see crows attacking my roof and more coming so I went to investigate.
As soon as I walked out the back door and was visible, an owl took flight and was followed by literally dozens of crows. It landed in a pine tree a couple of houses down and the crows started circling that like some hellish black tornado and I watched them eventually drive the owl out of sight.
It was seriously creepy. I’m hoping they focus on their hatred of owls and leave us humans alone.
Yeah, what’s up with grackles anyway? The way they strut around like they’re hot shit, you can tell they’re just full of themselves. They’re probably related to roadrunners. And what kind of name is grackle anyway? I’m sick of being asked “what kind of bird is that?” and answering “grackle” and having people think I made it up. Stupid birds.
My old neighbor had a pet pigeon that was infatuated with me. That bird would wait for me at my front door and upon seeing me drive towards the garage it would fly over and land on my car’s roof. The bird liked me more than the guy who took care of it.
I liked that bird, even though he scratched the roof of my car. What I didn’t like was his wild pigeon buddies who would hang around pooping on my front porch. So, I used a garden hose on them. They left, no harm no fowl.
It’s “flock”. “Murder” is not really the collective noun of crow, other than from a rather clever Victorian parlour game, which was updated in a fairly recent book, written in 1993. I believe that’s the earliest cite. My OED does not consider that as one of the many definitions of “murder”.
Also legit collective nouns for some birds: covey, host, flight, etc.
Owls is predators. Crows are likely frequently on the menu. Stir, add crows’ memory skills and grudge-holding abilities.
Don’t know if any of the links above mentioned this, but crows apparently have a sense of family. Adult crows have been observed going back to the flock they hatched from to visit their parents and help out with their fledgling brothers and sisters. So, y’know, you see another bird that looks like the one that ate one of your kinfolk…
For the purposes I used it here, a joke, “murder” is a perfectly cromulent word. It may be an old term that was never really used except poetically but enough people are familiar with the term to get it when used as a throw away joke.
If it makes you feel better, I have never used any of the poetic collective terms in real life situations, usually I just say, “Wow! Look at all those crows!”
Crows do remember people. Friend of my father once accidentally destroyed a crow’s nest. The flock or murder or whatever followed him around and harassed him for years. Some crows would even follow him until he went onto a bus, then wait until he got off the bus and harass him again. (This was in a city, so the bus wasn’t moving that fast, but still…)
*Yeah, what’s up with grackles anyway? The way they strut around like they’re hot shit, you can tell they’re just full of themselves. They’re probably related to roadrunners. And what kind of name is grackle anyway? I’m sick of being asked “what kind of bird is that?” and answering “grackle” and having people think I made it up. Stupid birds.
*
I’m telling you, all this crow hate is nothing but propaganda from the grackle lobby. Those bastards crap on your car on purpose, because they can. They are the JDs of the bird world. Always hanging around McDonald’s for a stray french fry, just waiting until they can ruin your new jacket and saying hey, I got a boat-tail, bitch.
And the old ones are the worst, what with their missing toes and half-assed feathers waiting for a pity hand-out before they waste your new wax job.
Crows are very hard to hit, FYI. In areas where’s there is hunting, they will recognize a gun.
So it’s more like “Caw, Caw!”“Ok little fucker I got you now…hey, where the hell did he go?”
“OK, better luck next time, so I have put the gun away…”"Caw Caw!"
Repeat.
Our dopey Golden Retriever chased a couple of big ass crows on her walk one day (I swear she thought they were black cats just hanging out in the middle of the street) and now they dive-bomb her whenever they see her. She is freaked. After watching that video I realize even more than before that she doesn’t have a chance against those crows…
Do note that it dates to 1993, not very old.