A Murder of Crows

Early yesterday afternoon, a murder of crows

settled themselves among the trees 

and across the ground in our backyard.

They made quite a racket,

with much chattering and tweeting from the branches.

Photo complements of morgueFile.com

Something startled them a time or two,

for those scavenging through the fallen leaves and pine needles on the ground

suddenly rose en masse into the trees.

But I really didn't pay much attention to them. 

That is, not until they started to make a rather odd chirping sound 

and I was overcome with the uneasy feeling 

that they were about to descend on the roof and the deck

where our smallest dog sat watching them.

My past experiences with ill-tempered birds mingled 

with images from Hitchcock's film "The Birds."

Ever since I was a child, 

I have unwittingly raised the hackles of roosters and geese. 

I don't know why. 

And I figured given my history, 

 the crows would not find me particularly appealing either.

So if they were to peck their way into my house, I was pretty certain 

that I'd end up like Suzanne Pleshette's unfortunate character in "The Birds" 

instead of Tippi Hedren's, who, with her sleek hairstyle intact, 

emerges from the house with Rod Taylor's concerned assistance

and escapes the wrath of the birds.

So just in case, I opened the door a crack 

and called our foster peke Ted inside the house.

I had never heard of a small dog (or an adult woman) 

being carried off by a flock of birds,

but I reasoned, why find out the hard way

that a murder of crows means just what it says.

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