"From a single grain they have multiplied.
When you look in the eyes of one
you have seen them all.
At the edges of highways
they pick at limp things.
They are anything but refined.
Or they fly out over the corn
like pellets of black fire,
like overlords.
Crow is crow, you say.
What else is there to say?
Drive down any road,
take a train or an airplane
across the world, leave
your old life behind,
die or be born again-
wherever you arrive
they’ll be there first,
glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world."
     ~Mary Oliver

Today’s Star Tribune carried a fascinating article about crows. It seems, according to scientists in Seattle who have been studying this common black bird, that they have the ability to recognize faces. Not just the faces of fellow crows but the faces of their relatives…the human. They recognize which of us is dangerous and they respond accordingly…..with the wild cawing and squawking often heard from above.The scientists consider this an evolutionary edge." If you can learn who to avoid and who to seek out, that’s a lot easier than continually getting hurt." says John Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington.

I’m not sure why this should surprise us so. Perhaps it is just our general belief that as humans we are so superior that the simple crow could not possibly carry so much wisdom and intuition. I will never see a crow in quite the same light again after reading this article.  And I  will certainly pay much more attention when I hear them making a racket as a go by.  Could it mean they perceive me as dangerous?

As humans we might be heard saying, "If you’ve seen one crow, you’ve seen them all." Or as Mary Oliver says….glossy and rowdy and indistinguishable. But it may now be clear that they don’t have the same experience of us.

It really gives you something to think about. Doesn’t it?