In March, when the boys and I started walking at the beach every morning, I decided I would re-learn the names of shorebirds. Not the gulls—even the professor who originally taught me the names of shorebirds said not to worry too much about gulls. But the other ones, the ones with the w’s in their […]
crows
Well, folks, we’ve just completed Corvid Redux Week, and you know what that means. Or maybe you don’t. It means we had a whole week of posts about the antics of some noisy and spooky looking but truly amazing birds. Our offerings went like this: Sarah celebrated “scatter hoarding,” a wonderful seed-saving thing that smaller […]
My grandparents live on a farm in central California, in a small ranch house surrounded by rolling hills. The house is shaped like an L, with a long hallway stretching one way, and a short stubby kitchen and living room not-quite-stretching the other way. In the long hallway there are paintings and photographs on the […]
Like Ann, I’m a recent convert to the charm of crows. This has led to a running joke with my husband’s cousin, Roger. At family reunions, I tell him how much I like crows. He tells me how much he likes to shoot them. Hilarious, right? Here’s the satisfying part: Crows remember Roger. They don’t just remember Roger’s […]
This first ran March 9, 2011. I haven’t changed my mind. Crows take care of each other, talk constantly, have their enemies lists, are smart, are wicked, and remind me a lot of the rest of us.“Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.” MacBeth is talking, telling his wife it’s a […]
One year ago today, the People of LWON published their first post. It was by Josie Glausiusz, it was on flesh-eating algae, and we thank her for setting that tone. Writing LWON — that is, writing what we want to and in the way we want to write it — turns out to be a […]
“Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood.” MacBeth is talking, telling his wife it’s a good night to murder the king. Even a century earlier, the collective noun was “a murder of crows.” Three centuries later, a poet watches a horse that’s been shot: “gorged crows rise ragged in the wind. […]