Wood Wanderings

by Winthrop Packard

The crow has a language, not exactly of words but of inflections and intonations, which express the primal emotions pretty clearly. I always think I know what he means, though undoubtedly his crow hearers understand the finer shades of inflection better than I do.

There is the shout of warning which says plainly, “Look out, there is trouble right ahead of you!” A similar shout, but with different inflection, says, “Come on. Come on. I’ll show you something worth seeing.” There is the yell of derision and defiance with which a flock drives an owl through the forest; there is the gentle cooing croak with which mated birds do their love-making. There is the cry of terror and the suppliant call for food from the full-grown young. There is also a peculiarly devilish croak of satisfaction which they make only when feasting on the tender nestlings of pasture birds.

This I knew, and I rushed to the rescue of my young robins, but I was much too late. The feast was well along toward its conclusion and the nests were nearly empty. The parent birds, reënforced by others of the neighborhood, were doing their best. They plunged and darted at the marauders, plucked and clawed at them, but not one whit could they stir them, nor did they leave at my approach, and it took vigorous and well-directed volleys of stones from a near-by heap to drive them away. Then they went heavily, as if gorged to such repletion that they could hardly fly.

I went on home sick at heart, and vowing shot-gun vengeance on all crows thereafter; and it was not until I had carved the chicken for dinner that I realized that there might be extenuating circumstances. For, after all, the crows had as much right to robin for their dinner as I had to chicken for mine.

Crows certainly are responsible for a large amount of infant mortality among young birds in the nesting season, however, and to my mind it is the greatest crime of which these black robbers stand guilty. It is for this reason that the crow is so well hated by smaller birds, and I don’t doubt it is this consciousness of guilt that makes him hang his head and flee away before the attack of the least of them. Blackbird and kingbird alike will send him flapping in shamed haste for the big wood, and it makes no difference whether or not he has attempted to burglarize their homes or slaughter their children.

Just as a known pickpocket is railroaded out of town by the police, whether guilty of present misdemeanor or not, so the kingbird sends flying any crow that crosses his path during the nesting season. You will hear the strident, half-hissing scream of rage on the part of the kingbird, see him launch himself from the air above and strike the back of the flapping crow with a thump that perhaps makes the feathers fly. The crow never attempts to strike back. He merely hangs his head and scuttles the faster for the tall timber where is release from this torment. I’ve never known the kingbird or any other indignant small bird to do the crow material harm; but he certainly sends him flying.

One August, traversing a lonely swamp, I heard a great commotion among crows over in its duskiest, farthest corner. Slipping quietly up, I found a number of them swooping about another, which sat on a low limb within a few feet of the ground. This crow was making beseeching cries, like those of a greedy youngster which still hoped to be fed, and I thought this was the case at first, for, though by August all young crows have long been full grown, the old birds continue to keep oversight of them. I had no sooner come within sight than the keen birds saw me, and away they all went except the supposed youngster, who still kept his perch and his silence, nor did he attempt to move as I approached and finally picked him off his perch.

For he was no youngster, this crow, but was blind, old, and emaciated. I think from the appearance of his eyes that he had been blind for a considerable time, and the interesting question arises as to how he had lived thus far. Surely he could not have found food for himself thus for any long period of time, so perhaps the other crows had fed him right along.

How old crows grow to be I do not know, but whatever extreme age they attain this one was it. I took him home and gave him the freedom of the yard, which he accepted. I fed him, and he seemed to be glad to have a foster parent and to have no fear. But his presence was fiercely resented by another family, and that was the kingbirds that had nested in a neighbor’s apple tree. The young were grown up long ago. In fact, the kingbirds had not been seen about for some time, but the crow had no sooner appeared than they came darting into the yard and savagely attacked him.