The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

by Margaret Renkl

I am beguiled by the promise of a year watched over by this bold, problem-solving bird—the playful prankster, the curious collector, the tender parent, humankind’s steadfast companion. Even if the terrible time comes when all the other songbirds are gone, lost to the fiery world, crows will remain among us, living on what we leave behind.

Crows have been observed conducting “funerals” for fallen flock mates, and this somber ritual may account for the gloomy associations, too. But other cultures have associated the birds with intelligence and adaptability, even transformation, and these are the connections I’ll rely on as the year unfolds. I have entered my sixties now, a time of change—to my body, to my family, to the way I think about my future—and I cling to the crow’s promise of metamorphosis. What more could anyone ask from a new year than the promise—or just the hope—of renewal?

But I think often of that stunning redbird lying crooked in the snow, a fallen battle flag, a bleeding wound,

a Shakespearean hero come to a terrible end. And I can’t help wondering if his fate might have been different if I had known back then to keep a dense brush pile in the yard for birds to shelter in on pitiless winter nights. Would he have survived to reign undisputed when the days finally warmed and it was time to sing again?

All this long winter long, the song sparrow in his pine tree pulpit has been teaching me that one exuberant, unceasing song can change everything.

I’m not trying to hide from the truth but to balance it, to remind myself that there are other truths, too. I need to remember that the earth, fragile as it is, remains heartbreakingly beautiful. I need to give my attention to a realm that is indifferent to fretful human mutterings and naked human anger, a world unaware of the hatred and distrust taking over the news.

For him there is an entire world that exists beyond my ken, and in this matter he is not unique. For every living thing, there is a world that exists beyond my ken.

I am not ready to move past the past, but I am ready for something different, too, something new and urgent and thrumming with blood and sap and life. I am learning that it is possible to want two contrary things at once. I want nothing to change. I want everything to change.

I love the crows not because they are exotic but because they are kindred creatures. I see in them my own kind.

After they quarrel, crows take care to make up with one another, but they can recognize human faces and will hold a grudge against someone who frightens them or causes them

harm. They can even teach their children to maintain the grudge, the corvid equivalent of the Hatfields and McCoys. When a crow dies, other crows gather around its body. To mourn? To bid their friend farewell? We don’t know, but they are our nearest avian kin, living together in families, creating tools, and solving problems—even, in a way, making art out of found objects. They stalk along the ground as though they own the place, like certain people I know.

Nothing is harder to love about the natural world—or the

human world—than its ceaseless brutality.