Crowed

It's that time of year again in Vancouver.  Springtime, flowers are blooming, the trees are in leaf, the days are lovely and the crows are on the attack.  It is nesting season, Gentle Reader, and Hitchcock rules.  Suddenly every large black bird in town thinks we are all dead ringers for Tippi Hedren an Suzanne Plechette.  We have only to walk anywhere near a crow nest and suddenly it's open season.  On us.  I have been attacked by three different crows in the last couple of weeks.  These birds don't take prisoners. Each made actual physical contact with my head as they dive-bombed me.  My crime?  Breathing while human.

It isn't that crows especially hate us though there isn't a lot of love lost between us.  But as their little babies with feathers start dropping out of the nest suddenly it's Angry Birds everywhere.  They are highly intelligent birds by the way, rather like chimps with feathers.  Only ravens are smarter as far as birds go, and crows hate ravens even worse than they hate us.  I understand that parrots and hummingbirds are also pretty darn smart (prettier and nicer too)

Sometime in early July when the little crow-lings are all fledged and able to fend for themselves, mommy and daddy crow will chill a bit and simply caw raucously from high branches at every life form they dislike, which is to say everything that is not a crow.  In the meantime, carry an umbrella with you.  Or better yet, a shotgun.  Or lobby city hall to cull crows nests within the city limits.  If they cant learn to behave like civilized birds then how about a nest cull.  Or maybe a shotgun.