Coos and Caws

One of the greatest joys of growing up on a farm was being surrounded by a wide variety of animals, both domestic and wild. Cows, pigs, horses, dogs, cats, raccoons, possums, skunks, rats, mice, rabbits, squirrels, snakes (I won't break them down into different types here; my mother liked all of them, I didn't), salamanders, catfish, bream, trout, coyotes, hawks, quail, dove, thrushes, hummingbirds, and the list goes on and on.

But now that I've become a city fellow, things are quite different. The selection of animals is much slimmer. And when it comes to birds, about 99% of the total is made up of only two kinds: pigeons and crows. But I have learned to make the best of it and now try to learn as much as possible about the behavior of these two birds by watching them when I get a chance. And I have learned that there are some major differences.

Crows remind me of hard-nosed, aggressive and perhaps slightly shady businessmen, closer to pushy used-car salesmen than slick corporate executives. Finesse and subtlety are traits they know little about. Their strategy is to haggle and confront, to grab and run. They are always dressed in black, often appearing slightly disheveled, the kind of fellows who don't know how to knot a tie properly and really don't care to learn. They study you with their glassy, beady yellow eyes, strut around right in front of you virtually demanding that you toss them tidbits to eat, even if you aren't eating anything. And if you don't immediately obey, they toss you a look of disgust and then flap away emitting a loud, raspy, unpleasant caw to find a better victim.

Pigeons could hardly be more different. First of all, they coo instead of cawing. It is such a beautiful, soft, gentle sound, one that would bring sleep to even the most severely afflicted of insomniacs. And their clothes are just as beautiful, ranging from gray, green, blue, violet, indigo, white, turqoise, well, just about any eye-appealing color, and always slightly different from their colleagues. They don't demand food from you. Instead, they politely, silently inquire whether you just might have something you could share. And if you don't, then it's perfectly OK. They gently tilt their soft eyes up at you, curious, perhaps suggesting that they would like to get to know you better, go home with you for a small meal. It is so powerful that I actually feel guilty for not doing so, and it's living proof that a soft sell is so much more effective than a hard one.