Moments ago, as Viv and I emerged from our car after wheeling to the drive and carport, we were struck by the ungodly ruckus a great mob of airborne crows were raising. I remarked to Viv that the crows must be worked up by the encroaching cloud cover, as we have noted with interest the wave of bird life that overtakes our hill when a squall line comes through.
Something seemed different tonight, however. The center of the sound seemed to shift from moment to moment and from every direction, crows were streaming toward this shifting center. As the focal point passed to the south I noted a particularly large crow headed for the center of the pack from somewhere near my yard. As I watched this crow, the bird’s wings appeared to move somehow more slowly than the birds I took to be in the distance. Just as I was musing on this, the bird banked sharply and my error of perspective was revealed in a flash of white.
The spread tailfeathers flashed against the dark clouds as the bird braked and banked. It was a fully-grown bald eagle running like hell to escape a growing mob of crows. As the eagle wheeled closer to the treeline, I exclaimed to Viv. The feathered dogfight had dropped beneath the trees, probably about twenty feet above the ground in the area where the birds ducked out of sight.
I have often been bemused and somewhat heartened by the sight of one or two crows doggedly climbing to harry a hawk or eagle. In my experience the bird of prey generally climbs rapidly beyond the reach of the smaller birds and glides away, the crows breaking off their attack at that time.
Viv and I continued to follow the center of the birds’ attention as it traveled in an arc around our position, until it finally emerged across the street. The eagle’s distinctive plumage was clearly visible; I involuntarily shouted “Get some altitude! Climb!” as the bird and fifty or sixty crows vanished again to our north, in the direction of a large graveyard.
As the sound of the crows’ hue and cry faded into the distance, the rest of the birds in the neighborhood began to twitter and call and hoot and whistle with frantic vigor.
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American painter Winslow Homer had recollections of crows hunting and killing foxes during the harsh Maine winters. In fact, that’s the subject matter of his painting “The Fox Hunt.”
A couple years ago I watched a crow repeatedly run up the hill on my street and swoooop down it, very close to the ground for the better part of an hour. I’m convinced it was playing. Crows are cool and crafty little devils.