When I was young, the birds in our garden were sociable, chirpy chappies: robin and sparrow, chaffinch and great tit. Starlings nested in our eaves, doves in the trees at the back of the house. I used a book to learn their identities. Our cat grasped them more instinctively, namelessly.
Now I live in the city, surrounded by feathered fiends: blackbirds, magpies, pigeons. Beady-eyed hustlers, sparkling scavengers, thoughtless vermin. Canada geese, with territorial, traffic-jam honks. Sea-less gulls. Invading parakeets, Ballardian and strange in the evening sunlight.
My friend wants to work with the ravens in the Tower: agoraphobic guardians, who might yet teach her how to fly. Me, I’ve been studying a different shade of blackness: the life and songs of the Crow. I’m gorging on mouthfuls of Ted’s carrion canon, digesting durian words of faith and fury.
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That’s a cool book. if this is your first time reading it, I envy you! I really like Hughes.
Of course, what biologists are finding out about crows these days makes the mythology almost pale by comparison.
It’s an old fave. I used to write the date of purchase in my books and this one says “15th August 1990″. It’s a book I return to again and again, usually with a few years between each reading. I get more out of it each time.
As for real-world crows and their biological investigators, I’m completely in the dark. But intrigued. Off to do some research…