Stone the crows
My dislike of crows intensifies.
They are really big and really ugly birds. They have nasty beady eyes and their big dirty beaks look like they are designed for plucking the eyes out of dead sheep. Sadly they are quite intelligent.
I was down at the coffee shop during the week. I was the only customer on the terrace and one of the nearby tables had recently been vacated by someone who didn’t completely finish their meal. This was spotted by a crow.
Now this fucker was really big and his beak was particularly ugly. For some reason his beak was open all the time which made him look like he was laughing. He eyed me. I eyed him. He hopped onto a table and watched me. I watched him. he plucked up the courage and flew to the back of a chair near me and near the scraps.
I stood up and went WAAAH!
He shot out onto the street nearly hitting a passing tourist on the head. I don’t know which was more surprised: the tourist or the crow?
Anyway he wasn’t going to give up. He was now even more wary. I was even more determined. He hopped onto the nearby table. I stood up. This time he shot off horizontally and narrowly missed being hit by a bus. That would have been sweet?
We kept up this game for a while. I got bored. He eventually grabbed the leftovers and of course made a right mess, much to the disgust of the staff who had to clean it up. Mind you, if they had cleared the table in the first place? But they had been busy inside.
I think I’ll bring me a little bag of rice and a Biro tube with me next time. That could be fun. One in the eye for the crow, as it were.
It could be a new coffee shop sport?
Better yet, put some drugs in some bread and feed it. Then you can really ‘stone the crows’!!
That is a brilliant idea. If I could source some Speed maybe they’d try to break the sound barrier over the village? Another local attraction? Or maybe just dope them so they stand around waiting for a bus to run over them…..
They’re canny birds…
We have a coven roosting in the chimney of the house next door, and also the church tower.
Whenever I put food out for the little birds, they gang up and bash the whole lot so they can demolish it all in a few minutes!
I’m still trying to invent some sort of netting ‘umbrella’ to keep the bastards off, but it would look like a Tracy Emin ‘sculpture’ so maybe I won’t…
For some strange reason they seem to congregate mainly in the village area. Out here in the Wild, it’s Rooks and Magpies, The latter piss me off as they seem to have scared off the smaller birds. I have the feeder right up against the window so the larger birds seem intimidated by that, with the exception of the Collared Doves. I like the Doves.
There is no closed season on crows here. They are the only thing that can be hunted on Sundays.
Disgusting little shits.
I would happily hunt them any day of the week. Them and Magpies. Everything else is more than welcome, even the Heron who tries to steal my frogs. I had to give up stocking fish because of that Heron!
Crows are said to be very intelligent, but it seems they are lacking in one arena: they don’t seem to be able to count. Some friends and I went after the crows in a wooded area and the crows all took to the air when we entered the area. Not a crow in sight. Two of us walked out the same way we came in and the remainder just sat tight under a tree. Within ten minutes or so the crows all returned apparently thinking we had all left. Five or six of those buggers never left again.
Heh! One indication of their intelligence is that during the summer, the coffee shop puts out dishes of condiments for those who want a meal. The rooks descend on those dishes and will carefully toss salt, pepper, sugar, mustard and ketchup to one side [making a mess of course] as what they are after is mayonnaise. They fly off with those packs to rip them open in peace, making a mess somewhere else.
We have crows, magpies and herring gulls. Really don’t know why I bother putting food out for the little birds.
No gulls thankfully. We are too far from the sea. The only time they appear here is when there is a storm on the horizon.
My wife has an air powered hand gun that shoots BBs at high velocity using high pressure cartridges. Good for about 5 or more full power shots and few lower power shots per air cartridge. Won’t kill a crow but it will definitely make him think twice.
Now that you mention it, I have an [illegal] air pistol somewhere. I must have a look for it. The only snag is that I don’t have any .177 pellets! Maybe I can fire lit matches?
I’ve still got a Diana air rifle .177 from when I was fourteen…
What a good idea!
I’ve got a .177 air-pistol – it struggles to penetrate the feathers of ugly birds or the fur of squirrels, but it can give them a headache and makes me feel better.
Maybe we do not like crows and their ilk because the are too much like us – the human race. We bad-mouth corvus corone by bestowing the collective noun “A Murder” on them. Maybe they too have periods of collective madness when the “clean” crows who wash their food have genocidal wars with the “natural” crows who eat unwashed food.
We are not comfortable with cats of color either. Humans have been really nasty to black cats.