Cycling past, I put on my best crow voice and cawed back at him/her in a jovial manner. But apparently crows don't know from jovial.
Seconds later, I was dive bombed. The crow took flight after my communication and then swooped down into my hair with its talons, attempting to embed and lift. It gave up - I ate a heavy breakfast that morning - and flew ahead of me to land on a tree branch.
I was gobsmacked. I stopped my bicycle and stared up into the tree.Did that..? Was that...? OMG! Then I cursed at the thing in Hebrew because - just between us - I was frightened of riding away lest 'ol humorless dive bomb me again. Eventually I collected myself and left.
I couldn't help but remember an excerpt from Robyn Davidson's Tracks describing a wild crow that played with her during her Australian camp-out by swooping down from a tree branch each morning and stealing her toothbrush just as she was about to pick it up.
Clever these fowl are. But not all that nice.
4 comments:
Silly girl, he thought you were doing a mating call. He was just trying the crow equivalent of the primordial club-her-over-the-head-and-drag-her-back-to-the-cave thing. It may not sound entirely romantic, but I think you have stumbled unwittingly on the avian equivalent of "hubba-hubba". :)
Seriously, though, them's dangerous birds. The Australian equivalent (called a magpie, by the way) have been known to divebomb even when they aren't the subject of mating calls. I've never seen it, but I've been told that in true magpie country, people wear old ice-cream containers on the heads (the big square ones) and put glasses on the backs of their heads to confuse the birds (who won't divebomb if they think you can see them). Problem is, that confuses the locals out there too ...
UGH! What a horrible thought! He fancied me. I was afraid that might be the case. tks for the insight. No more bird calling for me...slf
Crows are both wickedly intelligent and evil. They run neighborhoods they move into like the mafia, if you've ever spent any time observing them. Other animals are simply afraid...
I see that when it comes to other birds and territory. Soon they'll be shaking me down for lunch money (!)
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