Hit and Myth

Last weekend I spotted this beautiful crow hanging out on a trash container on the corner of U and 14th St NW.

Crows are always difficult to photograph, because they seem to delight in perching so that their dark bodies are silhouetted against the sky, turning them into black-paper cut-outs, inky and featureless.

This time I was lucky in the lighting, and so was able to capture the iridescent color variations in its feathers, the saurian scaly-ness of its feet, and the sharp look in its eyes.

I’m fascinated by corvids—by their look, their intelligence, their ingenuity in tool-use and improvisation—but I don’t know much about them beyond what I learned from the few examples I read about in animal-behavior textbooks and a documentary I saw on PBS a couple of years ago.

They’re yet another example of species that have managed to adapt to human environments and are, as usual, disdained (rather than admired) for having done so—and yet crows and ravens have a mythic history that lends them a degree of dignity that’s lacking in poor, much-maligned pigeons.

This makes me want to raise two questions: 1. What do you associate crows and ravens with? Cities? Pine forests? American Indian or Norse mythology? Scavenging? Edgar Allen Poe?

And 2. How can I create some nice mythic themes surrounded pigeons so that they get more respect?

{A note: I do write all text and take all pictures. Please do not reproduce either without my permission.}