The Rat and the Murder of Crows

The Rat and the Murder of Crows

Last week Gaby noticed large crumbs of insulation in a pile underneath the siding at the base of the foundation. A few days later I saw a tail disappear up under the siding, and two nights ago, during dinner outside, I saw the rat run across the back steps into a bin of firewood. We found something club like, and began moving chairs and tables away from the bin. Then I started lifting the chunks of wood out. Suddenly the rat leapt out, and was under a chair, then off across the patio into the shrubs. That evening after our puppy’s last pee of the night, Gaby set a large plastic rat trap with peanut butter. 

I woke in the middle of the night, not to our puppy pawing her crate to go out pee, but to the scratching and knocking of the rat in the trap on the patio. It was painful to see half of a body of a living thing thrashing in the spring loaded jaws. I grabbed one of the firewood scraps, but there was no clear way to give a decisive coup de gras. I did the best that I could, taking the scrap of 2x6 and quickly and firmly crushing as much of the rat beneath it as I could. It twitched once, and I hurt for it; it twitched twice and I began to panic, and mercifully it spasmed and I knew it was dead.

There is a crow in my neighborhood. The morning after our rat invader was expelled I saw it on my walk with the puppy. Mr Sparkles was, as most 12 week old puppies are of everything new, frightened by it as it walked along the road next to us. The dog, did not recognize the wing held cock-eyed, and the failure of the crow to take to the sky at our approach.

There are many semi-feral cats in our neighborhood. A month or two back as I walked out the front door to leave for work a coyote sauntered up the street. As I walked with our puppy, trying to help it have the experiences that would let it learn not to freeze and cower every time a car backfires or a crow caws, I took solace in imagining that the crow would be gone soon. Something would recognize its weakness and take advantage of it’s misfortune.

It’s four days later. On our walk this morning Mr Sparkles only froze once (ok, twice, but for large, barking dogs both times). Coming back home I saw the crow with the broken wing, just as I have for the last four days. And just as one has every day, as I approached the corner where the broken winged crow walks another crow up on a wire, or in a tree caw’d caw’ caw’d, warning of our approach.

There is a major rookery in the park two blocks away. The crows come from miles every evening at sundown to roost together. In the morning they disperse to forage and feed across the city. But there is always a crow in over watch of the injured bird. The murder won’t leave their fellow on it’s own.

How a society treats its wounded, it’s dying, it’s vulnerable says so much. Let us take our cues from a murder of crows.

Epilogue: The crow with the broken wing lived for four days.