Since there aren't any squirrels here for me to pick on, I hereby turn my attention to the second most horrible park animal: crows. There were a bunch of them in the park yesterday glaring at passersby from the trees, looking mean and up to no good. Like anyone who has seen "The Birds," I picked up my pace.
But I stopped my hasty getaway to watch what happened next. I am not making this up. A big shiny crow swooped in and knocked another backward off his branch onto the ground, where he pinned him, foot to chest. His victim flailed around while the rest of the gathered around to watch. (You can imagine all the horrid "cawing" from above.) This continued on for a good two minutes until his wings got tired, at which point it became boring for the bully bird, who let go. They all flew off together in an agitated huff.
Not very refined behavior for the harbingers of death. Okay, but as I think of it, pecking people's eyes out and eating carrion are not very refined activities either, so maybe it's entirely appropriate. In any case, it's just further proof of what we all know: crows are mean.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Conflict resolution, crow style
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6 comments:
ha! this reminds me of a great B movie you probably haven't seen - Resident Evil: Extinction. There was this awesome crow scene in it... kinda like The Birds.
Here's hoping Blogger will let me post a comment today, never mind the crows, Blogger is mean!
If you ever feel like changing your mind about crows read this: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text
around about page 5....
I can't believe you'd rate not only crows but even SQUIRRELS (how can you not think they're cute??) above PIGEONS on the Horrible Park Animals List. Pigeons are the WORST species ever. Well, I risk getting myself into the same trouble as you by using hyperbole, but pigeons are definitely high on my list of species we'd be better off without. I cannot give a fully rational explanation of why I detest them, but . . . there it is.
Okay, you've all given me enough reasons to at least rethink the ordering of my 'park vermin' list. I also happened to be in Venice recently and the trip renewed my fear of pigeons, a far more ubiquitous park animal which has undoubtedly caused more disturbed and dirty moments than crows and even squirrels. But squirrels will always have a special place place of loathing in my heart; one does not recover from a rabid squirrel attack in a short amount of time (more than 8 years, by my count).
If you still lived here, you could recount The Rabid Squirrel Incident in person. I can't imagine it would be as good when typed into an email. -sigh-
Fi, I finally got to reading this article, only four months later. You will probably never read this, but thank you! I really enjoyed it. (But crows are still scary.)
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