Wednesday 29th March 2023

 

On the grass, in front of our house, the crows and seagulls have fallen back into their usual cold war, after all staring at the lorry that came to emptying our rubbish bins. They stand around, glaring at each other, or attacking leftover fast-food wrappers, which the crows always seem better at. Every couple of days the cold war breaks down and they’ll start fighting over something or other, leaving behind the occasional feather on the grass.

Before lockdown, the grass was dominated by pigeons, who wondered around in their lost way, with the occasional crow interrupting them. But something changed during lockdown and a flock of crows moved in, driving the pigeons away. Towards the end of lockdown, the crows were joined by the seagulls and the cold war began.

The crows are now sitting up on the roofs, of our terrace of houses, glaring down at the street like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, as the seagulls just stand around on the grass. They are back into their cold war.

Anthropomorphosis Me

We give human traits and personalities to animals and even inanimate objects, its part of our human make up. Claiming our car has human emotions when the damn thing won’t start, or claiming that our dog can understand every word we say, not just “sit” and “food”. I’m certainly not above it, my imagination is very good at doing this.

Last week, we drove into a car park to be greeted by a flock of crows occupying one corner of it. There were about ten to fifteen of them and they were just standing there, not moving and not trying to fly away. There were no cars parked in that area either.

The crows had such a threatening and malevolent presence to them, like a gang of evil thugs guarding their territory. They’d have cut your throat for just looking at them the wrong way. They made me think of East End gangsters, nasty and not to be crossed.

Those crows might have been the most gentle and friendly of birds but their jet black feathers, all the extra and uniform shade of black, their strutting and arrogance stance, simply marked them out as malevolent.

Stood there, in the corner of that car park, the shear presence of those crows pressed themselves into my memory. What were they guarding? Whose evil thugs were they? Who had sent them there and why?

Welcome to my world, were the simplest of sights can set my imagination off into some strange and fanciful places.

Drew.