September 13, 2022

Daily Diary, Day 742: The weather forecast keeps promising a cooling trend, and it is definitely a bit cooler at night, but it got up to the mid 80s yesterday, and this morning it hit 84 degrees with 97% humidity. However, I am continuing to be good about getting walking and cleaning and exercise done as early as possible, which means I am getting in at least an hour and a half of exercise each day.

But this keeps filling up my morning (plus phone calls), so I only got 706 words written yesterday. Hope to do better today.

Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon while I was writing, I suddenly heard crows.

You may remember I mentioned that a couple of months ago, crows found that cat food was being put out by neighbor every morning, and they saw this as a morning buffet until she figured out what was happening. I quite enjoyed watching them as the jostled for their turn at the dish.

On my walks, there are certain blocks where there are always about 4-5 crows on the telephone wires commenting on the goings on. In addition, for the past few months a tree, visible but way to the west of us, seems to be where hundreds of crows come to roost each night. As the sun goes down, we hear them, can see them as they circle the sky and slowly disappear into the branches. Then every morning as we get up, we can hear them again, preparing to take off.

In short, when I heard the crows, I initially ignored them, until I realized they sounded like they were in the front yard. I got up and tiptoed to the window and saw there were about 10 and they were eating the tiny black olives that had fallen from our ornamental olive tree.

Of course, as soon as they saw me, they started to fly away.

For any of you who were young, as I was, when Hitchcock’s The Birds came out, you may have a similarity conflicted view of crows. On one hand, I find them quite fascinating and the research that is being done suggests they are highly intelligent. On the other hand, that very sense I feel of their intelligence gives me a shiver of apprehension whenever I see them in a group.