Wednesday, August 5, 2015

A Murder of Crows and Fight Club Magpies

Another day, another cleaning frenzy.  Prospective clients due out this Thursday...hopefully...there have been three cancellations, well two cancels and one mixed communication.  Taking a break from mopping/dusty/tidying.  Richard dances to the rhythmic sweep of the broom as he cleans all the walkways.

Know I get a bit (a bit!) anal about the cleaning thing, cleaning areas that will never been seen by anyone but me but it helps to dispense with nervous energy.

Not sure what I saw yesterday while riding.  Do magpies have Fight Clubs or Boxing Tournaments?  Always see magpies in family groups, usually three birds; mom, dad and juvenile.  Don't see them flock like PeeWees or even occasionally willie wagtails.  Yesterday however, was riding up  Zig Zag Hill prior to crossing the Muffin Top.  In a cleared area, only cleared because the grass hadn't grown  high, were a dozen or more maggies surrounding two fighting birds.    Naturally they all erupted and flew away, all dozen or more of them, when Balthazar and I crashed through the long grass.

So why were they congregated to watch the fighting?  How many family groups? Were they all males or mixed.   Mysterious.  Like so many things.

Like the gathering of crows.  A hundred or more crows will gather in one spot, squawking and squarking seemingly without rhyme or reason.  Periodically they will all lift into the sky as one entity, rising on a crescendo of screaming only to descend again, still shouting at the top of their lungs.

What do they talk about?  How do they know there is to be a gathering?  How far do they come?  Who decides the meeting has ended?  Just one more mystery in a universe of mysteries.


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