Tag Archives: Crows

The Crow Massacre

Once upon a time there was a group of crows. They were numerous, and had been established in their community for quite a while. They had a fairly well developed relationship with the surrounding farmers. They would refrain from picking the crops while they were growing, and hunt for food elsewhere. The when harvest time came, they were allowed to pick up all they could eat so long as they didn’t interfere with the harvesting process.

In turn for their cooperation, the farmers agreed not to shoot the crows for sport while they were getting close to harvest time. Crows are very easily hypnotized, and when the season is getting close to harvest time, there is something in the air that transfixed the crows. They begin to gather in mass hordes just outside the crops and wait for the harvest. This makes them easy targets for farmers with shotguns.

Once in early fall, before this rule had been established, several farmers, decided after a night of heavy drinking to have some fun with the waiting crows. They loaded up their shotguns and went out one night, and had a contest to see who could kill the most crows.

What happened after was disastrous. Very few people recalled exactly what had happened, but they all agreed that it was so horrible they should never repeat it. After several rounds of negotiations, they agreed that the crows would be protected during their hypnotic waiting for the harvest, and they would restrain themselves during their furious scavenging after the harvest.

This went on for several generations. The crows would hunt for squirrels and small rodents, and they could steer clear of the farmer’s crops. Then the weeks leading up to the harvest, the crows would slowly gather and watch, transfixed as the farmers prepared their instruments of harvest. The farmers learned to regard the gathering crows with a detached disinterest, not unlike a stronger predator barely acknowledging a lesser animal, waiting in the background for scraps.

Then one day disaster struck. There was a solar eclipse, which sent down a strange combination of solar radiation, and the strange feeling of night during the day. And few people know that the feeling of night during the day is one thing that can send the crows from a lazy feeling of desire into a ravenous blood lust for flesh.

Which is exactly what happened. Nobody knows why, but the solar eclipse was not predicted by any meteorologist, nor written about the much relied upon farmers almanac. It came completely without warning. It didn’t help matters that the frequency of the accompanying solar radiation was similar to that of the brainwave frequency of the crows.

What happened next was unimaginable. Crows swept down upon the harvesting farmers as one, instinctively plucking out there eyes, creating immediate and deadly fear and panic. With the farmers suddenly running around in a chaotic frenzy, the crows began plucking at their throats with almost surgical precision, ripping open carotid artery after carotid artery. Soon all fields were running with the blood of the slowly dying blind farmers.

When all the farmers were dead, the crows turned on each other. Before long, crows and farmer alike lay in the yet to be harvested fields, dead.

It took several days for the neighboring communities to realize there was a problem, as they weren’t expecting any harvested corn or wheat for some time. By the time a delivery truck happened through the community, the site was completely void of life.

No one has ever been to those fields since.

Blind Crow Lullaby

So I was walking up the steps to the Shinto Shrine in my neighborhood, when I heard this whoosh above my head. I looked up, and saw this big black crow gliding up in front of me, and then coming to rest on the branch of a large tree. I looked up, and saw two more crows sitting just beyond. Watching. Waiting. Images of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds flashed in my minds, along with an old Viking movie whose name I can’t remember where a guy got his eyes gouged out by some angry bird. Were they mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Did I anger the Shinto Gods? Lord have mercy, I hope not. I tried my crow call, (caw caw caw) which usually scares them away, but they don’t budge. They look at me. I’m certain ther’re deciding which eye to pluck out first before they send me plunging down the steps to a painful death.

I remember the first time I killed a crow. I was on my first ever hunting trip. Actually it was the only time I’d ever killed a crow. We went looking for doves, and a bunch of crows started flying overhead. Or a herd of crows or whatever you call a large number of crows flying in formation. I looked at my dad, and he gave me the go-ahead. So I closed my eyes, pointed my shotgun in the sky, and pulled the trigger. Naturally, because the crows were so thick, I hit one. I felt kind of bad. It’s not like the crow did anything to me. But from a skill standpoint, it was pretty easy. Close your eyes and shoot. Not nearly as a hard as I thought it would be.

It’s wierd when you think about it. That is how some people live their lives. You just go through, not giving much thought, and just close your eyes and shoot. I’m sure that most people, like you, have been able to consider at one time or another what would happen if you were to design your life. Instead of pulling the trigger and hoping to get something, you were able to develop a foolproof plan  that would make it almost impossible to not get what you want. Luckily, once you start to realize, now, how easy it is to set your sights on what you want, when you pull the trigger, you naturally can enjoy the benefits. And you know how to enjoy the benefits, do you not?

So after I got home, I looked up crows on google. Of course the first article that came up was how crows that hang out at shinto shrines have a tendency to eat peoples eyeballs when you least expect it. Go figure. Actually, that’s not what it said at all. It said that crows like to nest in places like small hills with lots of tall trees. And in when they have baby crows hatching, they suddenly become very aggressive and protective of their babies. I checked my watch, and sure enough, it was crow hatching season, not eyeball eating season. And here I was thinking the crows were gunning for my eyes, and they were thinking I had come to eat their children.  Now me and crows get along just great.

Permalink