{"id":1708,"date":"2009-03-24T14:22:12","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T14:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2009\/03\/24\/stone_the_crows\/"},"modified":"2012-02-06T17:36:14","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T17:36:14","slug":"stone_the_crows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2009\/03\/24\/stone_the_crows\/","title":{"rendered":"Stone the crows!"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, seriously, will someone please<\/em> stone the bloody crows?<\/p>\n

Now, I’ll be the first to express a grudging admiration for our corvid friends. They’re immensely successful and indeed valuable in a changing urban environment, and their intelligence<\/a> has been extensively documented. The sight of literally tens of thousands of crows on their daily commute<\/a> from Vancouver to the adjacent city of Burnaby is quite spectacular; you’ll find photos of this local phenomenon here<\/a> and here<\/a>. (I meant to get some of my own photos last night, but it was raining).<\/p>\n

However.<\/p>\n

Was there ever a more annoying creature?<\/p>\n

At my old shared house, dozens of them would congregate in the trees in the back garden. They started making their dreadful racket at first light, which in the summer is around 4 am. Why can’t they sound more like their relatives? We’ve often been woken by the pleasant throaty sound of a massive raven while camping, and the two experiences are like night and day.<\/p>\n

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The nesting crows in the tree in the front<\/em> garden decided that the house was actually theirs, and that any human daring to use the path from street to door should be instantly attacked. Everyone had their own technique for getting in and out of the house; I would put a heavy object into a cheap rustly plastic bag and start whizzing it around above my head when I left the safety of the front door, and keep it up until they stopped dive-bombing me about ten metres from the front gate. My flatmate preferred swinging a tennis racquet, although he did say that he felt guilty when he actually hit one of the attacking crows and sent it flying. He felt somewhat responsible for the crow infestation, as his attempts to stop them claiming the territory in the first place had been thwarted; he’d invested in a catapult, and used to shower the tree with handfuls of dried peas from the front balcony as the nest was being built, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

I no longer live in that house, but the fear of being dive-bombed by angry crows still haunts me. It’s not entirely unusual to see a pedestrian or cyclist being chased down the street, and with that in mind, the angry noises from above scare me every. single. day.
\nIt starts in the morning, when I head into the back garden to get my bike, to angry disapproval from the crows who hang out on the wires in the back alley, and who fascinate and terrify my cats in equal measure. If the raccoons are out there too, the outraged caws reach cacophony levels.<\/p>\n

It continues as I follow the bike route into the cemetery. The path is lined with perfect nesting trees, and at this time of year, I apparently represent a clear and present danger to every crow couple’s territory claim.<\/p>\n

Pulling clear from the trees, I usually have a clear run for a couple of kilometres. But, what’s this – they’ve spread fresh grass seed on the soil outside the newly completed Olympic curling venue, and my commute suddenly resembles a Hitchcock movie. And then, oh good, more trees overhead as I turn West towards work. Caw blimey, I’m glad I’m wearing a helmet.<\/p>\n

You’d really think they’d be used to us by now. Aren’t they supposed to be smart?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, seriously, will someone please stone the bloody crows? Now, I’ll be the first to express a grudging admiration for our corvid friends. They’re immensely successful and indeed valuable in a changing urban environment, and their intelligence has been extensively … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}