Returning from Goblin Valley, in a place in central Utah so remote that Moab seems like a metropolis, the kids rested, my wife had eyes closed, and I scoured the San Rafael desert landscape searching for something to keep me alert.
Suddenly, far ahead, a shadow peeled off the ground and drifted into the sky. My eyes eagerly followed it. Was that an eagle?
A second later, my shoulders dropped. That was no eagle. It was just a blasted crow.
There are two things you should know about this moment: first, I didn’t know it at the time, but considering its size, solitary nature, and extremely rural location, I was more than likely seeing a raven, not a crow. The other thing you should know is that at this time in my life I had a festering contempt for any bird of the corvid variety—corvid meaning crows, ravens, magpies … you know, the boring/detestable birds.
One reason why is that I work at a high school, and for years I felt personally targeted by the local murder, the designating term for a grouping of crows (tell me that your species is despised by the human race without actually telling me).
This murder would hang out on the roof directly above my classroom and the cackling outside the window rang to me as that of undisguised derision. We would often heckle back and forth, and I’d try to scare them off with some weakly tossed pebbles and sticks.
Fast forward a few years to this drive outside Goblin Valley and the appearance of a raven. Now, perhaps you understand both my disappointment if not my personal abhorrence for the creature before me.
It did make me wonder, however. Whether on the roof of my workplace, or bare trees in the winter when most other birds migrate to warmer climates, or even in the middle of nowhere south-central Utah within a desert environment that few animals could even stand—crows are freaking everywhere I go!
By this time I had passed the place where the raven drifted skyward, and I now glanced at its lumbering wings dipping up and down while tracing the contours of the human-made road below it.
And that is when it hit me. The only two animal species in this desolate landscape at this moment were humans … and corvid. Perhaps crows, ravens, magpies are so seemingly ubiquitous because they are intrinsically connected to one other species: humans.
Once I started to give the corvid species credit for this impressive imitation of human enterprise, I also began to equate their many vices with the worst vices of the human race. When I accused crows of being greedy, mean-spirited, simple-minded, and distasteful, I also realized that perhaps they did not come across these qualities independently. Perhaps, just as they followed humans to a wide-range of environments, they also adopted some of our most regrettable traits along the way.
In spite of those human-like faults, they also reflected some of our better qualities of ingenuity, community, and interspecies regard.
I silently saluted the raven, now a speck in the rear view mirror. Looking forward, I decided that I wanted to reset my views of corvid. No longer enemies, I wanted to show them respect. I reasoned that if I could not show crows respect, then how could I respect myself or humankind in general?
I started by learning more. I looked online, I read in books, I listened to podcasts. All were helpful in expanding my knowledge and appreciation for these intrepid, clever, and occasionally even noble creatures.
Not content with these second-hand sources, however, I next decided to track down an expert. Dr. Becky Williams from the Utah State University biology department and located in the Uintah Basin extension in Vernal, Utah, was kind enough to allow some amateur questions from me and endow cool perspectives.
Some things I learned very much overlapped with my previous crow encounters. First, Dr. Williams assured me that crows are “aggressive territorial predators.” One could see how they might see a school rooftop and surrounding area as their own domain, and defend it aggressively against intruders!
Yet could there be a more territorial predator than homo sapiens? Perhaps there is not a greater topic to clog up our legal system or even lead to wars of aggression than our own territorial propensities.
When I spoke to Dr. Williams about the versatility of crows—capable of inhabiting as wide a range of locations and climates as you will find humans inhabiting—she talked about a big reason for that coming from their intelligence. Corvid birds are smart, and that means that they don’t need as perfect an environment because they can come up with clever ways to survive wherever they find themselves.
Crows have bigger brains than their fellow fowl. They can remember thousands of different cache locations for seeds or other foods. They can even remember faces. Dr. Williams directed me to a study where crows recognized a unique human mask that researchers used in their interactions with the local murder. When she told me this, I had no problem confirming what seemed to me a very targeted pestering from the same crows over several years.
Why the intelligence? Dr. Williams explained that social animals tend to grow bigger brains. Crows, dolphins, humans … all spend a majority of time among communities. The complex relationships within those communities causes them to need to remember who is a cooperator and who is a cheater. In other words, they make an in-group of those who work together, and they hold a grudge. What’s more human than that!
While all of this helped shift my view on crows to one of admiration, I knew that I was still lacking at least one more important thing: reconciliation. The south Smithfield murder and I nursed our historic differences, and it was time that I made things right.
When the murder showed up at their regular spot above my classroom, I tried meeting the crows outside. I wanted them to see my face as I gave them a snack. While optimistic, I was disappointed to see the crows skittish in the branches under the ash tree where I stood. As soon as I reached into my pocket for a gift snack, they flapped off into the distance. I realized that my action of reaching for an object must have seemed familiar to them, as pulling things off the ground or out of my pocket was how I used to intimidate and scare them off before. They remembered the old me, and—as I had shamefully trained them—they retreated.
Just a couple of days ago, after weeks of non-aggressive attempted interactions, one of the more daring crows overcame reticence and dropped to the ground to investigate the unsalted peanut I dropped for them. He looked at it, looked at me, snatched it and withdrew back to the tree.
Over the last couple of days, more of the murder feel comfortable picking up the snacks I leave for them.
Am I looking to create a utopian bond between these crows and me? No. Perhaps dropping an occasional peanut and not yelling at each other will be the best that we can get. But I feel an immense satisfaction in seeing these remarkable animals respond to my overtures and believing that we have mended a divide between us and possibly even cultivated respect.
One of the biggest differences that I’ve noticed lately is that when I step out of the house or school on my daily walk, no longer am I looking down to queue up the latest podcast about political strife, daunting world news, or media designed to stoke the indignation of one group against another. Instead, as soon as I step outside, I look up. I’m looking for my new corvid friends—humbled, hopeful, grateful.
