Essays in Idleness

That conversations are taking place, throughout nature, and not only between the water buffalo (see penultimate post), is among the self-evident matters I am still young enough to understand — although not always to translate, from one species to another, faithfully. For conversations involve nuance. These not only give native speakers an unfair advantage, but one has to be there to get the joke, as it were. And you have to be listening, carefully, as well as being the creature for whom the language was designed, to grasp the poetics.

Amusingly, the “artificial intelligence” machinists have made some conspicuous discoveries while decoding the symphony of acoustic details with which the air is filled, when avians are communicating. Crows, ravens, jays, magpies, are among the most plentifully intelligent — far more than bipedal “liberals” — and can best be studied with their cooperation, rather than by insulting or boring them, for instance by compiling statistics, &c. For, unlike liberals, they have dignity, and should be respected.

I learned, many years ago, that crows observe periods of mourning for fallen friends and family, and assemble for the inquests. I was once embarrassingly “mobbed” by crows, in Victoria, B.C., when I was understandably mistaken as the killer of a fledgling, which had suddenly and mysteriously perished, near my feet. It was thanks to the crows’ ability to describe me, that my alleged guilt was broadcast to the other crows, all over the town, together with details of my dress, comportment, characteristic habits, facial expressions, &c. Though probably unable to kill me in revenge, I could at least be driven off Vancouver Island. The confinement of my understanding was entirely limited to me, who had never flocked with a “murder” or “parliament” of crows. For we lack the subtleties, in our senses five, to follow the proceedings in any crow investigation. We cannot even remain still for long enough, or endure a crow’s cross-examination.

On some other channel, you may find a little more information about this. But what I have to say is that, no matter how well-intentioned, you, as a human with your clownish ears, will never be able to follow the incredible procession of caws and clicks that are employed in crow conversation.

They are impressive even when restaurant reviewing, as I discovered when putting out food for them when I lived in Kingston, Ontario. Their leading gourmandess came to visit, promptly, but alone, whenever I put something out. I would listen to her detailed judgements, from the other side of a window, from which she knew I never threatened to pounce. Sometimes the proffered food was rejected, with a definitive, contemptuous phrase: “Unnecessarily exotic,” she might say. “Only a human would eat this.”

Now, the education system for their young (they had a school that met on the grass in Artillery Park, just across the street) put all our progressive scolarship to shame. For we classify everything fashionably into degrees of “Left” and “Right” — whereas the crows, like other intelligent birds, know that the categories are rather “Right” and “Wrong.”