Crows as Cheerful as Saints

The Dust of Snow

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was a celebrated American poet known for his realistic portrayals of rural life, especially in New England, and his masterful use of everyday American speech to explore philosophical themes about nature, humanity and choices, making him one of the 20th century's most beloved and widely read poets, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and the unofficial U.S. poet laureate. (Ai summary)

Breakfast with Crows

Crows dip their bread in 

the birdbath, delicately 

testing a recipe.

A Crow on the Go

A crow at the top 

of a tree, top of the world,

top of the morning.

When Ravens Bitch...

My Kind of Corvid

I love crows and ravens for their wisecracking voices and for that black-on-black gleam of sagacity in their eyes. They figure things out. They see us. They know us for what we are, which is why they keep a wary distance but remind us, with their taunts, that they are not overly impressed.

Recalling Thoughts on the Wing

Mindfulness is the necessary counterweight to the digital age. 

As the Crow Laughs...

Silly humor delights me.

Look What I Found at Dollar Tree Today

Actually, I believe a children's game used the name before my blog or this series of children's novels did.

The Yin and Yang of Ravens

A white (not albino) raven and his counterpart on Vancouver Island. Native American legends about white raven legends talk about them being the bringers of light and tricksters.

White flight

Who Has Seen Anything Cleaner?

…I wish we could be friends,

  but when he sees me

    daring to look at him

      he opens his strong arms

that are dressed, always, in the darkest ribbons,

  and floats off —

    but only a little way

      and he’s down again on the sandy track.

and who has seen yet anything cleaner,

  bolder,

    more gleaming, more certain of its philosophy

      than the eye he turns back?

From ‘Crow’ by Mary Oliver

Hey Kids! Know Your Weather Birds

A  feature page from DC Comics' Brave and Bold 34, which saw the debut of Hawkman

Odin Likes a Tidy Midgard

Crows and ravens, said to be as smart as 7-year-olds, are the birds I love best.

Ravens Remember Their Friends

Love the corvidae

The Crow in the Know

Art by Tiger-Tyger

I have always been drawn to the crows and ravens, with their uncanny intelligence. They reason, they play, they recognize both their friends and their enemies. I’ve always thought that observing their non-mammalian intelligence and comparing it to our own would give us clues to the nature of intelligence itself, exclusive of its particular biological form.

Some videos illustrate my fascination. Here, crows solve complex problems. And here, crows teach themselves to work a vending machine. And there’s this. Here, a drowning crow is rescued by a bear. Not quite sure what that illustrates, but I think it’s pretty wonderful.

The Wonder of Crows

By Travis Gettys

She often photographs the crows and other birds, and she lost her lens cap in a nearby alley a few weeks ago while photographing a bald eagle.

When she returned home, the lens cap was sitting on the edge of the birdbath.

Mann checked video from the surveillance camera she set up to record the birds and spotted a crow bringing the lens cap into the yard, walking it to the birdbath, and then rinsing it off. “I’m sure that it was intentional,” she said. “They watch us all the time. I’m sure they knew I dropped it. I’m sure they decided they wanted to return it.”

Just Because

Crows in a Strong Wind

Painting by Sophy White

By Cornelius Eady

Off go the crows from the roof.

The crows can’t hold on.

They might as well

Be perched on an oil slick.

Such an awkward dance,

These gentlemen

In their spottled-black coats.

Such a tipsy dance,

As if they didn’t know where they were.

Such a humorous dance,

As they try to set things right,

As the wind reduces them.

Such a sorrowful dance.

How embarrassing is love

When it goes wrong

In front of everyone.

The Passive-Aggressive Raven

lo, as they say, l

Wings of Myth

Crows and ravens, the most intelligent of birds, have long fascinated me.