Reading Diary B: California and the Old Southwest

This reading diary is over the second half of the California and Old Southwest unit and I want to talk about crows for a bit here.  In the tale “The Boy Who Became a God,” crows are seen returning to their flock to talk about the narrator’s brothers’ kill.  This is a thing that crows do in real life.

The Nature documentary did an episode titled “A Murder of Crows” which features the farming town of Chatham, Ontario – where a murder of approximately 300,000 crows had come to roost.  The problems with these crows got so bad, that the mayor held a shooting competition. 

However, it only took only one crow to get shot before the others realized how high they had to fly in order to avoid the pellets.  This information was spread throughout the murder by the crows talking to each other.  (While scientists still argue over whether or not crows have an actual language, it is agreed that crows do have distinct regional dialects.)

Since shooting didn’t work, the mayor of Chatham brought in a man who uses his trained hawk to harass and chase the crows.  The crows then go back to the roost and “talk” about what had just happened to them. 

So basically the crows in the tale “The Boy Who Became a God” exhibit actual crow behavior.

Here’s also a super fun cracked.com article called “6 Terrifying Ways Crows Are Smarter Than You Think” that helped me to procrastinate my way through this assignment.

Crows, among other corvids, are infamous tail-pullers