A Murder of Crows

A MURDER OF CROWS

“Oh.” I looked down at the dead bird on my back deck, and sighed. 

A dead crow.

I gazed at the poor creature. Its eyes were open, flat black, unseeing, all life now gone. Its blue-black feathers dull—not the usual lustre they have in life. Its tiny claws were curled in rictus. I looked up at my kitchen window. It was cracked—a small point of impact surrounded by spider webbing across the glass. The bird had died when it had flown into my window.

I went to the garden shed and retrieved a shovel and a pair of gloves. Returning, I gently scooped up the unfortunate creature into my gloved hand, head flopping to the side. It had broken its neck when it struck my window. Even in death it was a beautiful creature.  

I trudged to the back corner of my lot, set the dead bird down gently on the ground, and began to dig a small hole. 

CAW! CAW! CAW!

I stopped and looked around. There, up in the oak tree, was another crow. It appeared to be watching me. I remember reading that crows mate for life. I wondered if this was my dead crow’s mate. The thought made me sad. It was watching me bury its partner.

I turned back to my task. When the hole was deep enough to discourage the carnivores that visited my property—foxes, racoons, coyotes, skunks—from digging it up, I placed the body in the hole.

CAW! CAW! CAW!

The solo crow in the tree jumped down to a much lower branch, coming closer to me.

CAW! CAW! CAW!  

Its tone was strident, like a warning. It was agitated, moving side-to-side, flapping its wings, ruffling and puffing its feathers, fanning its tail, screaming at me.

It was so frenzied that I was afraid it was going to attack me. I quickly put down my shovel, and slowly backed away towards the house, watching it the entire time. I knew corvids would dive-bomb animals and humans they perceived as threats. I felt that I was now part of that threat.

I would finish the burial later. I wasn’t going to confront a grieving (do crows grieve?) mate who had just lost its partner.  

I turned walking toward the window. It was—of course— the large middle section of my kitchen window. It was going to cost a fortune to replace. That was, if I could get just the glass replaced, instead of the entire window.

I looked closely at the damage. It was a double pane window, and the crow had broken through the first pane and cracked the second. That was a lot of force. How had a single crow done that much damage? 

I took a few pictures of the damage for insurance and for the glazier, and headed out. I needed to stop at the hardware store as well to get a roll of duct tape to cover the damage. My first stop was the glazier. Unfortunately, it would be about a week until they could fix the damage. I needed an IGU, which was explained to me as an insulated glass unit. Double pane, triple pane—it didn’t matter—once one piece of glass was broken or cracked in the IGU the entire thing had to be replaced. In my case, at a cost of about seven hundred dollars. The deductible on the house was a thousand dollars. Sigh. 

I wasn’t in the glazier’s for more than half an hour. When I came out I stopped, frozen in place. My truck was whitewashed in bird droppings.

“I was watchin’,” said a man leaning in the doorway of the vacuum repair shop next to the glazier. “It was like they were targetin’ your truck.  They just came by, droppin’ their loads all over it.” He chuckled.

I looked around. There were no birds anywhere.

“Crows,” he said. “Big black crows. A bunch of ‘em.”

“Crows?” I said, a shiver running down my spine.

“Strangest thing,” said the man. “They didn’t make a sound.”

I continued my errands without any more incidents—grocery, bank, gas, bakery. I added a car wash to the end of my to-do list.  Just as I was pulling out of the car wash, a lone crow dive-bombed my car. A giant white splat hit the windshield. The crow flew silently away. I used my wipers to erase the insult.

Driving home, I scanned the sky for crows. I saw none.

I activated the garage door opener as I pulled up my driveway and drove into the space. In good weather I usually just parked in front of the house, but after events of the morning, I figured out-of-sigh,-out-of-mind. I closed the door, unloaded my purchases and went inside.  

I walked into the kitchen, and stopped, looking at my kitchen window. The small hole was now the size of my fist, and the cracks radiated as far as the frame, inside and out. Glass littered the kitchen floor below the window. I dropped my purchases on the counter, took out my phone and compared this morning’s photos to my new reality. The damage was substantial. I took more photos.

It was then that I saw one small black feather on my kitchen floor.

Grabbing the duct tape, I went outside. I examined the damage. A few shards of glass pebbled the ground. More photos. I tore off strips of tape, and tried to stabilize the glass, covering the cracks. The hole was a different story. It was big and needed more support. I laid strips of tape across the hole, then went into the garage and grabbed a piece of cardboard from an Amazon box. Dismantling the box flat, I placed it over the hole, and duct taped it in place. I stood back, took a few more photos.

As I was taking the picture, I jolted. There, in the webbed pieces of glass was the fragmented reflection of a crow.

I spun, looking behind me. No crow. I shook my head. This was getting creepy.  

I walked to the back corner under the oak to finish burying the dead crow. I bent to pick up my shovel to fill in the hole, and looked down. It was empty, and the dead crow was gone. And around the small hole was dozens of bird feet impressions in the newly shovelled dirt.

CAW! CAW! CAW!  

My head jerked up. There, sitting on the lowest branch was a crow, staring at me. Was it the same crow from this morning? Maybe.

I grabbed my shovel, turned toward my house, froze in place.  

There were at least a dozen crows sitting on my roof—on the peak, on the gutters, on the window ledges. They were silent, glaring.  

Okay, I was officially freaked out. I dropped the shovel and ran for my back door. The birds lifted off the roof, en mass, and began swirling around me. It was horrible and frightening. My hands flew up to protect my face. I could feel their bodies sweeping by me—a scratch from a talon, a peck from a beak. I was being attacked by a murder of crows. I reached for the back door, opened it, and practically fell inside. I slammed the door closed, locking it. I stood with my back against the door, catching my breath.

TICK-TICK! TICK-TICK! TICK-TICK!

My head slowly turned towards the kitchen. There, on the counter sat, a crow. I didn’t move. It didn’t move—it just stared at me.

TICK-TICK!

My eyes swivelled towards the hall. Another crow.  

I started to slowly make my way towards the garage door. Each time I encountered another crow, it TICK-TICK-ed at me. There were two crows on the handrail to the second floor. Another on top of the coat rack. One in the dining room, two more in the living room.  

My house was full of crows. My backyard was full of crows. 

I needed to get away—far away, where this avian vendetta didn’t exist.

I crept through the laundry room—two crows sitting on the washing machine. I opened the garage door, and carefully moved my hand around the wall, and pushed the button to raise the garage door. The door started to slowly rise, and the courtesy light switched on. Four crows were sitting on the rails of my truck bed.  

How? How did all these birds get into my home?

I took small, slow steps into the garage, the crows’s eyes on me, unblinking.  

Rustling.  

I looked behind me, and through the door I saw all the crows blocking the door back into the house. I looked back towards the truck. At least thirty crows were standing on the ground in front of the garage.

I reached for the truck’s driver side door. That’s when they attacked.

*****

Grayson drove into the driveway. It had been a long day—court had run late, and he had a pile of depositions he had to review before they reconvened tomorrow.  

So he was organizing his evening in his head when he saw the house.

And jammed on his brakes. He stared in horror, mouth open. Every window in the house was shattered. The garage was open. He could see the tail lights of Jilly’s truck—they were smashed.  

Then he noticed the crows. Dozens and dozens—maybe hundreds—of crows. They were in the trees, bushes, on the house, sitting on the back of the truck. Everywhere he looked there were crows. And they were all silently watching him. There was one single crow sitting atop an unidentifiable pile of—what?— on the ground by the open garage. It extended its wings, not breaking eye contact.

Grayson’s eyes scanned the yard, a ball of dread forming in his stomach. All the silent, watching birds.  

Where was Jilly? His eyes returned to the mound by the garage.

Oh, God, no!