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March 5, 2016

CROWS!!!!!!!

... i was getting ready to begin the process of figuring if i was in the mood to decide what to cook for supper, or, if not, then to go check the shelf in the kitchen and see if i had any shredded wheat, when i realized the sun was setting ... i sat on my window ledge to enjoy the day's end, reminding myself that even if it was a bit dreary out it was still something to appreciate ... as i watched i noticed that the local murder of crows was settling in the trees across the way, one of their favorite resting spots ... i grabbed my fuji x-t1 and perched the attached ancient tamron sp 300mm lens against the top frame of the open window ... 

... during a five-ten minute span i'd estimate that 500-1000 huge crows found their way to the the little copse of trees surrounding what used to be the wtvl 1490 radio station ...

... perhaps two-hundred yards from my apartment window, still i could easily hear the cacophonous chorus created from the hundreds and hundreds of individual conversations taking place in the tops of the trees ... each of them, i'm sure, if translated would be some variation of, "how was your day—my, how interesting—you can't imagine what happened to me today" ...

... then, something i doubt anyone understands, perhaps via some kind of telepathic communication, or, more likely, simply a case of follow-the-leader, one-by-one they all took flight to try another of their evening roosts ...

... as the giant flock soared just above my head the thought came to me that they might be landing on the roof above ... i attached a wider-angled lens to the camera, set the focus for ten-feet, then very quietly climbed the metal ladder to the roof hatch ... camera ready, i twisted the locking handle and pushed the metal cover up about six inches ... bird chaos ensued as dozens and dozens of the crows took panicked flight ... i laughed aloud as i listened to repeated cawing versions of what i know must be corvus for "what the ****" ...

... even as i snapped this picture, one of the birds, much, much too close to focus my lens upon, from beneath the hatch coaming popped up his head up in front me, wagged his beak, cawed "what the ****," and then ran away around the back of the hatch ...

... soon all that remained were these two crows ... "you go last" ... "no, you go last" ... "nah, age before beauty" ... they were still sitting there when i closed the hatch ...

... when this all started the parking lot below me was filling up with the saturday night out-for-dinner crowd ... all the while i was watching the crows there were at any given moment five-ten people walking across the lot ...

... nobody seemed to hear the crows ... nobody stopped to watch them ...

... i doubt if this is exactly one of those robert frost "two roads diverge in the woods" things, but, still, i'm glad i shared a bit of my evening with the crows ... and with you, too ...