Trigger warning (and spoiler alert): Death and dismemberment
It had already been a long morning here at the house. A storm system moved through around 4 a.m., the sort of thing fit for an old-fashioned Hollywood horror movie. I’ve lived through numerous hurricanes and other storms and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that much lightning. It looked like someone had turned on the world’s biggest strobe light. And the thunder at 8,500 feet is always something, but this was extra.
And then Ruby needed to go out. And then I had a 6 a.m. call for work.
I was just settling into what felt like a normal morning, when something started banging on the house. We are plagued by woodpeckers and nuthatches and flickers and other birds that peck on the siding. But this sounded like someone, like a human, knocking. But it wasn’t at the door. We have Ring cameras and they didn’t go off. Ruby, though, most certainly did.
So I let her out into the dog run, and began a circuit of the outside of the house.
And that’s when I spied a crow perched on top of a birdhouse that’s attached to the side of the house. I considered the crow. The crow considered me. Just this past weekend, while hiking nearby, we’d come across a murder of crows, about 30 strong, just raising a ruckus as crows do. Except one of the creeps had learned to talk, apparently. From the top of a pine tree, we could hear “Helloooo?” Sounded like a baby in the tree.
This crow, the one on our bird house, sat there watching me take pictures of it for a moment or two before flying off.
The birdhouse has been occupied this summer by tree swallows. I like the tree swallows. They’re graceful birds and they don’t have a habit of drilling holes in our siding.
I walked up onto the deck and under the birdhouse, all around my gas grill, was carnage. Feathers and blood everywhere. I don’t know if the crow got only the babies or if it managed to eat the whole family.
It was upsetting to say the least. But such is the nature of, well, nature. It’s nasty and brutal, birds in particular.
RIP little tree swallows.
KEN WHEATON 