Unpopular Crow Dies Savagely

The crows are absent (West Nile Virus?). They drove out the pigeons, but what will replace them. Saw a lone, young crow on the telephone wire yesterday. A blue jay was harassing it. There were multitudes in my urban neighborhood in 2009 (see below). Where have the crows gone?



A crow's caw is discordant, but part of our neighborhood backdrop, and easy to ignore. Just now, they set up a racket, the kind that usually heralds their spotting some tasty dog kibble left in the backyard, but this time it was more riotous than usual and was accompanied by a great beating of their wings.

They are big birds and some of them have a 3-foot wing span so if a few of them are together they manage to pound the air and stir things up. A panicked, pleading sound underlay this display, almost like that of puppy being tortured, yet more avian than canine. It was pitiful enough for me to put down my laptop and go investigate.

At first I thought the crows were going after a more mundane bird, but it was one of their own. A giant crow, glossy-black and commanding, was attacking a smaller crow. He was accompanied by three henchmen, and oddly, a bluejay.

The victim flew off, crying and begging, and the others followed. They circled back and the smaller crow tried to move into deeper tree foliage. The bigger one swooped in hard with a premeditated body blow and knocked it off its perch. Then, all of them took turns swooping down on it. It happened so fast and with such a flurry of wings that I couldn't tell for sure if it was being pecked. It managed to right itself and fly off again followed by the crowhood.

The boss's calls were louder than the others and angry, definitely not a dog kibble caw.

They circled back. The blue jay landed on a telephone wire to observe the proceedings. He didn't do any attacking, but still this was crow business, was he crazy?

I tried to keep still, but they simultaneously cocked their heads in my direction. I quickly calculated how fast I could get inside the house (damn you, Alfred Hitchcock!) They flew off into another yard, but I could hear the attack continuing.

What did the smaller, presumably younger, crow do to deserve this punishment?

Dancing and Wrestling Nerd Style

I wrestled with a girl last night. A thin, muscular woman whose name I don't remember, but whose strength was impressive. It was a sweaty twisting game on a well-padded floor in semi-darkness, and one of the many exercises our leader had asked us to do in Dance Alive. That was an hour into the class.

In the beginning, we stood in a circle and gazed at one another. We were told to be unafraid, to really see the other person. I smiled, knowing that without my glasses I could only see silhouettes. This made me invulnerable. There were about 20 people in the class, men and women of all ages, including two pre-adolescent boys. I arrived with a friend who'd done this before, and we partnered for the opening exercises, which were free-form and involved "being the movement, not directing the movement."

My mind is never at rest, and I don't want it to be, so I faked it. The music was eclectic, but in the beginning trended toward erotic-meditative-swirling. Some people writhed on the floor. At least I think that's what they were doing; I could see them well-enough to not trip over their bodies. The music switched to a native drum beat and we let our bodies move, freed our voices. I led my partner in a native-american stomp alternating with war whoops and giggles. 

"Surprise your partner!" A wild romp of tag ensued. "Switch partners!" A chase, a feint, a tickle, a slap on the ass (from me on a tall blond girl). The sweat-drenched humidity in the room rose and I thought about taking a microbial sample from the carpet, but I had no slides, have no microscope, and no access to a lab. I'm just paranoid.

My friend disappeared, but my wrestling foe/friend entered my blurry sphere. At one point, I had her pinned to the ground, our thighs intertwined, upper bodies twisting. "You've done this before," she said.  True.  We crashed into two grunting guys. "They should offer wrestling at 24-hour fitness," I said, teeth clenched. "We could teach it," she said, and then slipped, slick and lithe, from my grip.

The final half-hour of the class was pure dance club. Wild. Ecstatic. Joyous. I hung out in the hallway for part of it, overheated, then leaned out a back door into the cool night air. The door opened to an alley. An ancient tree stump is there, not small, right up against a building. The yellow street light cast interesting shadows on its twisted gnarled bark. 

Next time, I'm bringing my camera to photograph it.