I’ve always been a fan of Crows. Their dark beauty, their intelligence, and their sociability draw me to them. Unfortunately, Crows get a bad rap. Some people see them as omens, warnings, a sign that evil or death is near, or a menace, and whenever they appear in movies you know something bad is about to happen.

I don’t think that’s fair, because they’re some of the most brilliant and just creatures on earth. Scientists have known for years that Crows remember faces and how they feel about you. If they like you, cherish that. They may even bring you gifts. But if they dislike you, you might as well move to another part of the country—before they run you out.

One day a few years back I ran into these two on my way to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my license.

They were so close I could reach up and touch them. As I took the photo, more Crows landed nearby, and I thought, “They either like me or they’re here to escort me to the nearby coven for chastisement.” Fortunately they appeared to approve of me, as evidenced by a lack of danger calls and berating statements. I am grateful for it, too, because not only do they remember you and their character assessment of you, they teach their young accordingly, as the adult (left) may have been doing with this “teenager.”

The Crow below landed on the balcony of Hellscape while I was working at the dining room table.

We were about 10 feet apart. The Crow saw me, so I said, “Hello, beautiful bird.” It studied me for a moment, adjusted its feathers, shifted its weight from one foot to the other in a little half-turn, then cawed.

At the time I sensed it was curious, maybe even confused, like “wait, what, a human?” and perhaps wanted to tell its companions something.  But now I wonder if it was just put off by the vibes of the place and told its flockmates to stay away because no other Crows ever came to visit.

Not like here. Here I have all kinds of birdie visitors to my balcony, including a family of Crows led by one I think of as Octavi, short for either Octavian or Octavia as I don’t know the bird’s sex. Octavi would come to my balcony alone for the first few months after I moved in, attracted by peanuts I put on the railing. Then one day there were two. (Octavi is on the right.)

It turns out that Octavi has a family on the property, for not long after that, there were three, all adults, who would come to the balcony. Then I noticed their nest in a tree across the grounds. It might seem that the threesome was some sort of love triangle, but sometimes the adult offspring of a Crow couple will stick around and help raise babies. Other times, adults in the extended family like aunts, uncles, or cousins stay with a Crow couple to help out, too.

This year, it appears that the family has grown to seven: Octavi, spouse, the other adult, and four new additions who are now fully grown but still hang around the tree.

Crow family life fascinates me. Each family keeps to itself until after the breeding season. Then, once the juveniles are fledged and able to forage on their own, Crows often convene in giant flocks in the evening to introduce their families to one another and mingle. I’m fortunate enough to live just a couple of miles from one of the biggest gathering spots in Arlington, and if I time my evening walks correctly, I’ll see thousands of them fly in from all directions to one spot, and sometimes I will stand on a corner greeting them. Yet some families convene in smaller flocks, while others, like Octavi’s, don’t seem to go very far at all. I don’t know why they do this, but perhaps they’re not so different from people in a way, where some are super social and like a big raucous gathering and others are more insular and introverted. Or maybe Octavi’s family know a good thing when they have it, because they love to forage and play tag with each other in the grass by their tree.

A lot has been said about “Crow funerals,” where Crows gather around their dead and appear to mourn, but now scientists think that part of the ritual involves learning what happened to their fallen one, the better to avoid the same fate. I tend to side with the scientists on that. A couple of years ago, I was forever finding Crows that had been struck and killed by cars in one particular dip in the road near where the huge flock convenes in the evening. This year, I only saw one, a poor fledgling not much bigger than my fist, flattened so that I couldn’t get it off the road. Another night I did find a recently deceased Crow in some grass by the road as well, but that one that didn’t appear to have any car-related injuries, and I was able to lay it to rest in some nearby bushes. They’re magnificent even in death, their feathers a dark prism of pinks, yellows, blues, and greens.

Are Crows mystical and attached to the Great Beyond, like so many myths and legends would have us believe? Maybe.

One sleepless night, not long after Inigo and I said goodbye, I went out onto the balcony at roughly 2:00 a.m. to get some air and try to find some peace in the cold stillness of the early March air. The trees were still bare, and when I looked up, a Crow was up in the branches of the maple in front of my apartment. I could only see the shape of the bird, but I sensed it was looking at me, and rather intently at that. It was actually kind of unnerving, the one time I’ve ever been unsettled by a bird. The Crow extended a wing and shook out its feathers. We stood there for several minutes, me looking at the Crow, the Crow seeming to look at me.

“Octavi?”

The Crow shook out its feathers once more, flapped its wings, then swooped down from the tree, descended toward me for a split second, then turned and flew off, leaving only the sound of its beating wings.

I still don’t know if it was Octavi, but whoever it was, I felt like that particular bird was there that night on purpose. This Crow had a reason to be in that tree, alone, facing my balcony and bedroom window, almost like it was waiting for me to give up on sleep and step outside. Maybe it was a messenger. Maybe it was standing guard. Maybe it wanted me to know it was there.  I suppose I’ll never know.

But I do know this: Crows are part of this world, and they have things to teach us.