The wind has picked up in advance of a stormy evening and the crows, who seem to live for days like these, are making the most of it. As I watch them surf and tumble about in the gusts, I can just about feel the exhilaration they must be experiencing. Oh, to be up there with them! What a thrill that would be!
There’s a tall pine tree on our block that about a half dozen crows are using for their base of operations. They lift away from the branches and try to hover a few moments before finding their perches again. The wind doesn’t make it easy as they adjust wing or tail this way or that, but that’s the fun of it, I’m sure.
My building is seven floors high and I’m on the sixth floor. My bedroom, where I’m typing this, is on the corner. Sometimes a pair or threesome of crows will peel away from the tree and head right toward me. They come so close to the building, (and my window!), that sometimes it seems I could reach out and touch them. Then, quick as a wink, they swoop around the corner to be briefly seen out my other window and then they’re gone, only to appear moments later around the other side of the building and back to the tree. Or sometimes, they come within feet of the building and suddenly swoop upward to the roof.
One of them was carrying something round in his beak. When he was about thirty feet from my window, he let it drop (I’m sure it was intentional), then dropped about five feet himself to catch it neatly in midair. Then off around the building he went, which was too bad because I would have loved to see him do it again.
A few blocks distant is a fair-sized park with many large oaks and chestnuts and such planted a hundred or so years ago. Occasionally, thirty or forty crows will gather on the leeward edge of the park and hold surfing and tumbling contests (or so it seems to me.) Oh gosh! They seem to have so much fun! Crows going every which way and calling out to one another. If I can’t be up there with them, I’m so glad I have the privilege to watch them.
Now rain is entering the bay and will be here soon. I think the crows are calling it quits for a bit, and I think I will too.
