My Husband “Eats Crow”…

One day in early 2011, I had an interesting experience involving Crows.

Carrion Crow (Corvus Corone) Apart from the Raven the Carrion Crow is the largest member of the Crow family. Unlike Rooks, which live together in large numbers, Crows live either in pairs or in threes. (Photo credit Wikipedia)

My morning routine normally involved a house full of people, so the morning was already unusual. That morning I was left alone, everyone having somewhere else to be.

Still lying in bed just after waking-up, my attention was drawn to a congregation of Crows which were gathered toward the back of my house. These Crows were making a deafening ruckus cawing and crowing, which they seemed to be directing at my bedroom window.

“Weird.” I thought, but I brushed it off. It was not unusual to see a Crow or two around my home, as my residence was near rural farmland…

As the morning progressed, it became obvious that the Crows were following me. As I migrated from the back of the house toward the front of the house to the kitchen, the Crows moved from the back yard to the front of the house, as well.

I peered out of the kitchen window at them, and their cawing seemed to lessen in intensity as if they knew they had gotten my attention.

“Weird.” I thought, again.

Morning turned into early afternoon, and I went out to check the mailbox. At this point I knew that whatever was happening with the Crows was not my just my imagination.

I ventured outside to witness a group of twenty or more Crows  amassed across from the driveway where I stood. They were all perched atop of a huge Pine tree that sat in my neighbors yard. There were a few others here and there, sitting on telephone poles and on the roof of my other neighbors house.

There was not a soul in sight, and the street was eerily quiet.

“CAWWWWW!” One single Crow crowed at me with obvious deliberate intent. The rest of the birds remained completely silent.

“Oh, What do you want!?” I called back. Frustrated and a somewhat unnerved, I returned to the house without an answer.

A little later my husband, Mike arrived home for a few minutes, before having to leave again. Strangely, the entire time that Mike was home there was not a Crow to be seen or heard anywhere in the vicinity. I casually mentioned to him that there had been Crows harassing me and received the “Uh, huh.” I expected in reply.

That evening Mike and I drove to visit some friends, Ernie and Grace who lived about an hour and a half away. When we arrived, they were entertaining some other friends, who we were unacquainted with. After everyone was introduced, Grace exclaimed..

“What a coincidence you guys showed up now! We were just showing off some of the artwork you were doing for the coloring-book!”

At the time I was drawing some artwork to be included in an “Indigenous Sacred Beliefs” coloring-book. I had used the following picture from the Mayan Dresden Codices as one of my templates for a coloring page in the book, and it was the one that they had been showing to their visitors when we arrived.

According to the information I had researched about the image, the bird at the top of the tree was suppose to represent a Quetzal, the sacred bird of the Meso-Americans. However, ever since drawing the image myself, it had occurred to me that the bird looked more like a Crow or Raven.

The fact that this happened to be the drawing our friends had shown their visitors, seemed like another occurrence, connecting to the strange Crow events of the day. With this as a jumping off point, I decided to tell everyone about the strange experiences I was having that day.

Everyone thought the whole thing was peculiar and were interested in my experience, but no one had any idea what might have been the causing the phenomenon.

For some reason the whole subject had irritated my better half, and we ended up getting in an argument on the way home about the fact that I had shared my unusual experience with everyone.

“I just don’t see what the big deal is…. Are you sure you weren’t just exaggerating the whole experience?” he complained. “People are going to think you are a lunatic if you go around telling them stuff like that. I’m not sure that I even believe all your crazy stories, these days.” he proclaimed, and would not discuss the matter further.

“Fine.” I replied, completely frustrated. I knew that he was just being his usual conservative-minded self. “You know that anything I tell you is always the truth, at least as well as I can express it…”

Silence.

“Whatever. He will come around.” I figured. I turned on the radio to help lighten the atmosphere.

I turned on KGO 810 AM radio which had a regular astronomy report. It had just begun…

“In our clear and bright Northern California sky tonight we can see the constellation CORVUS, the Crow…” began the report…

“The constellation is now aligned to be seen most clearly from our vantage point in the northern hemisphere and has not been this visible to the naked eye for several years…” it went on.

Needless to say….My loving partner has not accused me of exaggerating since!