Scott Duncan

I returned home early this morning and on the front lawn were five crows, near the vegetable patch. I was overcome with a sudden but brief sense of dread. Not because the crows were eating the vegetables, but because they were crows, beautiful and black, on the green lawn covered in drying cut grass. I noticed them through the pines, and then as I turned into the driveway, they rose into the air, first into the pines, and then across the road. Later my neighbour said: did you see the young crow? I said: no. She said: I didn’t see it either, but I heard it. It has a special high screetching caw. Later still I heard the high screeching caw and ran down to the yard to see the young crow. I couldn’t tell, or perhaps the young crow left before the others. I hoped, almost against hope, that the crow had fallen to the ground below the pine trees – or perhaps was in a nest in the pine tree! but it did not present itself or I couldn’t find it. I sent the dog into the yard to keep the crows away from the vegetable patch.

Ontario recently banned the use of pesticides throughout the province, excluding golf courses. I am thinking about this as I drive past a local course (as far as I know they aren’t banned anywhere in Quebec). Thinking about whether golf courses use pesticides all over the course, or whether they reserve the chemicals for the flat space around the holes. As you can see, I’m not a golfer. I don’t even know what that space is called. The green?

I thought also of a twit interviewed on the news who was against the ban on private property because he used pesticides to kill earthworms under his lawn. “The raccoons dig up the earthworms, tearing apart my lawn.” So much for a patch of wilderness in his backyard.

And as I’m thinking these things, five crows lifted off from the course. They had been standing in a more or less straight line. Four flew away from the road, over the course. The fifth flew toward my car, and used the air the car pushed away as it moved forward to rise above me, twisting toward the course. As a visual artist, I wish I could show you what this looked like: five crows in a line, lifting into a dark grey sky, over a bright green golf course. The thoughts and the flights took about two seconds. The trees lining the roadside. The sand pit. The pond. The asphalt.

Another shot of this bird in the Vancouver area, from Mark Dixon Macdonald.

Several people who live on the street where this fledgling was spotted claim to have seen him two years ago, but of course they had seen a previous generation. Albino crows are easily picked off by owls when roosting, so stand little chance of maturing to the second year. Beyond that, albinism may express recessive genes that have health impacts.

Either way, this fledgling is being tended to by three adults – presumably its parents and one of the chicks from last year. Catching even a glimpse of the bird from a passing car feels special. It’s like for an instant the colour balance of nature goes all out of whack. It looks so immediately wrong that it feels like a trick of the light – that what you’re seeing can’t possibly be real. I saw the crow again yesterday and it had the same jarring impact. To me, it is no wonder that such rare birds were held in high regard or dread by the ancients.

- Mark Dixon Macdonald

Photo credit: Mark Dixon Macdonald

I spent the weekend at a meshoui – a party where a lamb was roasted on an open fire, and then eaten. As is often the case in the country, I spent a lot of the afternoon driving: picking up sound systems or dropping off the dog, or getting more ice.  On one of these trips, I saw two crows on a power line, beyond which was an old black bicycle with a basket of flowers, parked at the entrance of a house. A charming scene which led to a number of thoughts: why do I never stop to take photographs and always tell myself I will shoot this picture as I return from my errand?  Could my point and shoot camera capture anything of the closeness of crows to bicycles?

I continued to drive, and thought: there will be crows circling around the fire pit where the lamb is roasting on a spit. They will roost calmly in dead branches above the fire and wait for scraps to fall to the ground, or grab bits of crackling skin from the hands of children.

When I returned to the meshoui, the crows by the bicycle were gone.

Many hours later, after the lamb had been sliced and eaten, the dessert served and the dishes returned to the kitchen,  the fire had been built back up for marshmallows, and the men were gathered to light the first fireworks, I looked up and a battle-scarred crow missing many tail feathers flew overhead, looking down upon us. Another crow cawed from a  hidden spot in the forest.

It is seagulls that swoop and snatch.

I pass by a crow perched on the 100 km/h speed limit sign. His black body. Moments later I watch a young crow make a clumsy landing on a black electrical wire. His young body not yet matching the size of his feet.

The murder was raucous and crashed through the trees. I stood swatting mosquitoes in the woods. One broke away. The crow in the hemlock to the east of me got the last word.

The stuttering hop, peck intensity. A blackbird, a white-eyed black bird. Casselman.

Every morning, so far, I’m alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky – as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings

I sometimes wonder if flying is falling for some birds. Songbirds often flap, then tuck in their wings and fall, and then flap again. Their flight looks like this from the side: —-____—-____—-____. Other birds fall upwards on thermals or gusts of wind. I don’t know how to categorise a crow’s flight because they tend generally to climb energetically. Today I saw a crow that tucked its wings in, like a songbird in that its trajectory was forward more than downward, but like a falcon or an osprey in the way it left a third of the wing out – for guidance? so it wouldn’t fall?

As another crow flew past, wings outstretched to land on the roadside, I noticed a gap in its tail feathers. A fighting bird.