Western Scrub-jay (image from Wikipedia)
This morning a Western Scrub-jay valiantly attempted to fend off a tag-teaming duo of American Crows. From his perch amid the open needle clusters on a Himalayan cedar bough, he tiptoed around as a balancing sentry, ruffling his brilliant lapis lazuli wings and shouting his liquid, yet trenchant, ascending ‘kreee! kreee!’. Launching from the tips of the uppermost, thin twigs of the facing London planetree, the lustrous crows repeatedly assaulted the scrub-jay, with laughing caws of ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’
Strangely enough, the scrub-jay lost his throne, but the crows never gained it–the cries and fluttering ceased, and both parties flew away. Crows and jays have, ostensibly, some of the harshest calls of all birds. Perhaps, however, they also are versed in gentle, assuaging words, too subtle for humans to hear; and thus a silent, mutual understanding was reached, heard only in this unuttered language of the corvids.
American Crow (image from Wikipedia)
March 30, 2010 at 7:34 pm
While I was running this afternoon on Riverfront Parkway just before the river, one crow absolutely jettisoned itself at another crow who was minding his own business, toddling on the road. They tussled and rolled around a bit before walking away together.
–Is there some malignant influence in this rain? I guess they don’t mind getting their feathers dirty, since they will promptly be cleansed.