Counting on crows

There was the crow on a winter’s morning, perched as close to the end of a tree branch as it could, against the cold blue sky, facing the arms and hands of branches wrapped in hoar frost. Was the crow catching sun or taking in the winter scene? Or both?

Many winter days the only birds I see are crows, not counting the usual visitors at the bird feeder. I see crows when I drive, crows when I hike, crows when I’m stacking wood. Along the road, in the fields and woodlands, in the pine trees of the back yard. They are a constant and oh so easy to see—feathered black on winter white.

I take their appearances for granted until I see the rather pensive-appearing crows, like one on the hoar-frosted branch of January, or another I saw perched on a foot-tall corn stubble stalk. One tall crow, I thought at first!

There was another crow in winter that had claimed a patch of grass and dirt the size of a bathroom rug on the road shoulder where the on-ramp meets the freeway. It was a bold crow that refused to give ground no matter how close trucks rumbled past its oasis.

Brave and hardy, these crows. And quite social with each other, which was apparent one day when I drove past two crows rubbing wings while sharing the top of a wooden fence post along a town road. Crow buddies watching traffic. Perfect photo, I thought, but by the time I turned around and came back, they were gone. For all I knew they were direct descendents of Heckle and Jeckle, now hiding in a tree and squawking with laughter.

So I count on crows in the winter, every day, the beauty and boldness of their blackness matched only by their distinct and raucous “caws” piercing the frigid air. They not only survive winter, they seem to live for winter, enhancing the season, as easily as black on white.