Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Morning Light with Crows


The days are slowly lengthening here, just a minute a day right now. Even so it is now light enough when I leave for work in the mornings that it is no longer dead dark or even so dark that the landscape is entirely in chiaroscuro. On clear mornings, like this morning, I can see some colors, though they are still muted. And this morning I even saw some birds.

A family of crows were up, haunting the upper parking lot at Roundtop. Seeing any bird again during the work week after what feels like months where it is too dark before and after work to see anything is cause enough for me to celebrate. This family of 7 were scavenging for bits of food dropped by skiers—the odd French fry, a piece of hot dog bun. They were also outraged by my presence, perhaps already used to having the parking lot to themselves in the mornings. I was almost mobbed by them when I got out of my car to snap today's photo. When I finally retreated, a few still followed the car, one or two on each side of me, as though they wanted to make certain that I was leaving them to their goodies without taking any for myself.

4 comments:

smilnsigh said...

Mmmmm, very territorial crows, hu? Beautiful photo but.... scary crows. :-)

Mari-Nanci

Anonymous said...

They eat more junk food than I do (well, almost)! :-)

Jennifer said...

I love crows. We get lots of calls at Audubon, though, from folks who want to know how to discourage them from roosting (right over their cars).

Carolyn H said...

I like crows, too. They're smart--perhaps too smart for their own good sometimes. And crow smart isn't anything like human smart, so conflicts are bound to happen.

Carolyn h.