There are a lot of crows hanging out in the park across the street these days. There are always a few around, but there’re more than usual, a few dozen at least.
Every few months in the building’s board of directors meeting minutes, there’s an item that says something along the lines of, X board member suggested that we remind Tom not to feed the birds near the building. The bird droppings cause damage to the garden. When confronted at house meetings, Tom always says that he now crosses the street to feed the birds. It’s true, I see him every couple of weeks headed for the park, scattering bird feed, chomping on a big cigar.
Seva & I once tried to predict an earthquake based on crow behavior. I told him that a crow had been stalking me for several blocks – it would fly out ahead of me & wait in a tree or powerline half a block away, wait for me to pass, cackle, then fly ahead of me again. He said that, the day before, a crow had taken a swipe at him – it flew down & grazed his hair. This, we decided, was a sure sign of impending earthquake (didn’t happen, of course).