Three Crows

First, a red-shouldered hawk flew across the lake and landed in the last of the tall pines near the shore. Just as that bird settled, I heard crows coming along from the same direction—three, and noisy and then circling the hawk. 

The crows dived and flapped and cawed, the hawk unmoved.

After a minute or maybe less of that harassment, the hawk flew to the Grandfather tree. Already airborne, the crows swooped and fluttered in mock attacks on the predator. 

Again the hawk settled, again the crows persisted—so loudly I thought neighbors might come out to see what the riot was about. 

This hawk I believe to be the resident female. Earlier in the week, I watched her fly over my back yard with a mouse in talon and into the woods below the dam where she nests.

Up she lifted, seemingly unhurried. The crows, frenzied. 

Higher she rose, catching updrafts, beginning a slow, shallow circling. The crows continued their aggravating aerial assault, sometimes so close the hawk veered a bit from their flightpath.

Still higher, still pursued, the climb now to I would judge 100 feet. One crow peeled off from the trio. Climbing still, the pair of crows continued their antics.

A second crow left the fray. The final crow still flashing at the hawk as she led it higher. 

If only that crow might make a mistake on the wind, I thought, one little puff, a little shift from another angle, an inadvertent stall—bam! The hawk clutching the crow by the neck, squeezing without mercy, dropping the miscreant to splash into the lake. 

I watched, I wanted to see the tormentor get its just end. They worked even higher. Any minute it could end. And it did, the final crow flew off.

Wait, I rooted for the predator to kill in this scenario. Not for food, but for some satisfaction of a kind I’m not sure I want to mull over too deeply. What the hell.

What the hell did crows ever do to me?