The Crow

Several crows live near my apartment. There's an aerie in the elm tree in our parking lot. As a result, I'm often raucously serenaded.

Crows are paranoid creatures. When I bike along, they'll stare at me from lawns. If I make eye contact with them, they immediately squat down. If I turn my head and face them directly, they leap into the air in a flurry of ebony wings.

That's the way it should be.

However, one of the crows here is abnormal. On two occasions, I've passed within a foot of a crow and it didn't budge. The first time, I biked by a crow, and could have kicked it, if I was so inclined. When my bike was past the bird, it began its rodomontade.

The second time, I was walking down the steps when something caught my attention. Before I registered what was wrong, I froze. And then I looked around to see what was awry.

A bicycle was leaning on a fence less than a foot away from me. On the handlebar closest to me perched a crow. It tilted its head and stared at me. It was bedraggled, and much smaller than I expected. Crows look much bigger, from a distance. This one didn't look a whole lot bigger than a large robin. I was surprised to see it has dark blue eyes. I'd always assumed crows had black eyes. It stared at me, and I felt intimidated. I wasn't afraid that it would leap on me and start pecking, but I was afraid that the crow was sick, and maybe I could catch whatever it had if it got cocky. Maybe it has West Nile disease. I don't know what the symptoms are in birds, only that dead crows should be reported. Normal crows just don't let people get close enough to touch them.

As I walked away, it cawed loudly, over and over.

I haven't seen it since, but I won't be surprised to bump into it again.

I still wonder why this crow is so fearless. Is it sick? Was it raised by people? I want to know.