Crow Business
Crow Business Part 1
I.
Birds
Don’t blame us as your territories grow small
We only take what we need
Which is really just all
II
in the glowering skies
Above the peace of the Downs
A conflict is raging
A battle for a tiny piece of Britain
But there are no Bandits at 3 O clock to be seen
No plucky Spitfires or Hurricanes trailing clouds of glory
The dogfighting combatants, wheeling, cawing,
Swooping and shrieking overhead
Are neither goodies nor baddies
Just birds
Crows and gulls
Squeezed inland and outland
Into the breaches
Survival of the fattest
That’s the lesson life teaches
Birds not of a feather
Scrapping together
Like Nations at war
Old football scores
Ranting populists
Endless speeches
Gulls invade the downs
Crows land on their beaches
We understand these primordial territorial voices
It’s no way to live
But what are the choices?
III
Anyway
Here’s the thing
If you were placing a bet
Would you favour gull or crow
To gain upper wing?
Well
Crows are ring masters of the air
Absolutely button bright
I saw a crow liberate a stolen sandwich
From a furious seagull
In flight!
Artful and crafty
Problems solving is their particular delight
Japanese crows have cracked cracking walnuts
Using cars and traffic lights
Corvid memory is exceptional
We claim the land
But it’s under their sky
Crows will attack and bully transgressors
They can recognize individual human faces
Especially if they belong to people who’ve done them harm
So, if this means you
And you’re passing through (their territories)
Keep your head down
IV
As for gulls
Apex opportunists
Well-seasoned food fighters
To gull is to deceive
So don’t be fooled
By their cackling seaside postcard persona
Hungry gulls have no concern for any previous owner
Watching them now, have you ever known a
More brazen thief?
Intent on their share
And yours
And yours
Snack eaters beware
In conclusion
Apex flyers
They’re bigger and faster than their corvid foes
So, the match is pretty even
I suppose
V
But in this skirmish at least
The more organised crows are claiming victory
Mobbed and harried away by the clan
The white birds are on the run
Returning triumphantly home in noisy celebration
The rasping calls of the victorious defenders echo across the sky
Safely out of range
A retreating gull screeches one last insult
They’ll be back
© SEH 10.05.25
Amended 28.04.26
Crow Business Part 2
Crow Business- Part 2
VI
Through the mist and drizzle
Like grainy footage of an old prop engine fighter plane
A windblown juvenile descends
Approaching the runway
Too fast
He lands
First on one foot and then the other
And caught off-balance
One wing undercut by a sudden gust
He skids and skitters to a halt on the shining grass
The young bird looks around suspiciously and preens himself
Have some laughing gulls or worse,
Any of his peers observed his less than elegant landing?
Respect is all in this pecking order
He consoles himself with an unfortunate bug that’s strayed
Too close to his razor beak
One lightning stab and it’s down the hatch
Soon other members of the squadron arrive
Fluttering to the ground like black snowdrops
An impromptu war cabinet is forming
Time to refuel, discuss tactics and exchange battle stories
VII
A grey muzzled, official- looking bird spots me, lurking
He hops forward to assess my potential threat
He’s definitely of some importance (if only of self)
A wing commander perhaps
Possibly even an Air Marshall
But I can’t take him seriously
Crows epitomise grace on the wing
But on the ground….
With their stiff- legged hop steps, they seem comical
Charlie Chaplin comes to mind
I almost expect him to produce a tiny bowler hat and cane
I laugh
The grizzled veteran fixes me with a fierce corvid eye
A sideways look that glitters with an alien, earlier intelligence
Ca Caw, Ca Caw, he croaks
(it sounded a bit like that, but more rasping)
I stop laughing
VIII
“How big you think you are (says the Crow)
Yet you krawl akkross the ground
And you kannot fly
You are like bugs to us
As we soar and weave across the Sky
There was a battle in this place long season ago
No time at all in the mind of a Crow
High in the air we watched your warriors die
Chop, chop, chop, stabbing and sticking
Such a waste we thought
Why leave behind such glorious pickings?
Blood on our beaks, slapping and licking
Such fleshy delights, such succulent eating
We can hardly wait until your next meeting
Laugh you do
But when your shops close
Who will survive
Us or you?
Out here under the big Sky
When your world has closed
Then we will feast
Now begone!
This crow business is no business of yours”
IX
Yes, I know I don’t speak Crow
I made that last bit up
I can only guess at what they’re really thinking
Humans anthromorphize and Disneyfy
We turn animals to our likeness
To make sense of their otherness
But our stories are our own, not theirs
X
Why do I like Crows so much?
Hard to say
I mean I certainly don’t like all of their ways
They can be nearly as cruel as us
They’re also carrion eaters
But so are a lot of humans
Dark heralds, harbingers
Crossers of portals between the worlds
No chilly committal in an English churchyard
Is complete without the caw of a watching crow
And I feel connected to a realer life as I watch them
watching me
They know something about living and dying
That I’d like to know
Perhaps If crows do recognise faces
These ones at least will know I mean them no harm
But now it’s turned chilly and it’s time to go
Coffee and the comforts of home are calling
XI
Suddenly
As if in response to some arcane signal
There’s a thrumming sound and a change of pressure
Amidst a cacophony of rasping calls
Air is displaced from beneath beating wings
And the Murder lift off as one bird
Spiralling skywards in an inky shape- shifting vortex
Towards the safety of the roost
© SEH
10.05.25
Amended 28.04.26