Virgil, Ontario. March 19 2019. One crow and one stick was all I needed. We are in that early cascade of harbingers of spring. A week ago, came the first reports of Red-winged Blackbirds, then American Robins, and shortly afterwards Killdeers in ones and twos. As temperatures improve each day, cancelling out the drifts of snow and ice, the surge of spring becomes unstoppable; well maybe not completely unstoppable but at least spring now has a foothold.
As I drove a long, straight, country road today I could see Turkey Vultures drifting north and coming our way, just dots here and there in a blue sky. An American Crow flew across the road in front of me, it was carrying a single stick in its smiling (I’m sure of it) beak. A stick for a nest in the old evergreens, a nest for eggs and for fledglings to be reared in the much warmer days ahead.
American Crows don’t get much attention, evidence of this is that I don’t have a single photograph of an American Crow. This Hooded Crow, photographed in Sweden, is the best I can do. We know the crow family to be intelligent, but they’re not pretty, they don’t sing and they can be quite ill-mannered in their approach to fresh food. But, all of that aside, today’s American Crow carrying proof of spring was my Bird of the Day.
Yes American Crow is under noted, it is often the first bird u see or hear from my apt. in the morning. Wed. the resident pair spent the first day of spring bonding by haring the local Red-tail Hawk.