Friday, April 29, 2005
As the Crow Flies
It's Spring, so birds of all sorts are happily (my interpretation) chortling around my place of work. The manufacturing facility, a 300,000 sg ft building, has a huge parking lot to allow the 500 folks here a place to leave their car/truck close to their work site so they can scoot in under the bell and make it on time.
The sprint toward the timeclock is particularly interesting on Mondays, as the under-30 set are still living the Live-for-the-Weekend lifestyle. At my kids' elementary school, during family days, relay races were held pitting the kids against the 'dults (pronounced dolts by those adorable offspring). To make things especially interesting, or to make the races equal, at the start of the race and at each exchange, the kids and the adults had to put on excessively large pants, shirts, hats, & ties. Considering the fact that, as parents, every weekday morning was a clothing battle royale to try to get your children clothed and off to school, it struck a lot of us as irony that the kids were beating our pants off in this aspect of the relay race. Who'd of thought what took 15-20 minutes every Monday through Friday, took only a minute in this competition. Size matters and we the parents had obviously missed this point. If we had only dressed them in XXL, one of the morning battles would have been won. These memories come streaming back each Monday as I see the younger employees zipping into the parking lot, leaving their windows down and their lights on, and madly running to our factory, while pulling up their pants and buttoning their shirts.
But that's a different path gone down than the one I'd intended on. Sorry about that; let's get back to the birds. Our site is, as the crow flys, about 2 miles or so inland from the Delaware Bay. So, along with the usual robins, grackles, red-tailed hawks, assorted species of sparrows, we also receive visits from gulls, killdeer, and even an occasional osprey. The lord and master of our asphalt bird sanctuary is the crow. Now, everyone knows that the crow is extremely intelligent. and somewhat vicious. I realize these are all human attributes, ones that should not be attributed onto an animal. But, since I'm at this point already, let me throw in vengeful. There, a threesome of human traits all unloaded on this most admirable of birds.
Vengeful.
One Monday, while laughing in the privacy of my car at the Sprint of the Partially Clad, I was slowly driving through our parking lot in search of that elusive slot close to the building left open by a departing third shifter. A bird was standing in the middle of the parking path, not eating, just looking around. It didn't move as my car approached. I honked. It disdainfully (my interpretation) turned it's head sideways to get a better look at what was disturbing its Monday morning constitutional. I eased up slowly and honked again. It remained still, watching me. I stopped, got out of the car, and chased it off to one side. It thought so little of this disturbance and clearly saw I was no danger to it that it didn't bother taking to wing. Just simply shifted from side to side as it walked off. I got back into the car and put it in gear. The crow, beak slightly open, hopped toward the middle of the road.
Once.
Twice.
Stopped.
The winged and wingless performed this stop 'n chase two more times.
Some folks that had been running to get to their work stations had stopped, shirts mid-buttoned, to take in the drama.
Stand-off of the species.
Some of the more NRA leaning spectators threw out helpful suggestions.
"Gun it 'n run it!"
Others, seeing this as a confrontation between management and workers, just stood and took it in, filing the crow's behaviour as a possible line of action to be exercised by themselves at a later point of negotiation.
I scrounged through the car and noticed a half-eaten donut (my interpretation). Throwing it off to the side of the road right by the crow, I jumped into my car, hoping to end this confrontation. The bird didn't move for 5-10 seconds, then slowly ambled over to the donut. It looked at me one more time with disdain (my interpretation), cawed a few times, then turned its back to feast.
I drove down the aisle of cars, nary a space in passing.
I turned and finished the loop, going the other direction. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of black appeared. Hadn't had my morning coffee so I chalked it off to failing vision or synapses.
Parked the car in the next zip code, my escapades with the crow having taken a good 5 minutes and filling any parking spcaes closer to our building. I got out, locked the door, slung my pack on one shoulder, and started a briskly paced walk to the over the horizon office.
A loud caw.
I turned, about 15 feet from my car.
The crow was on the roof, standing slightly sideways.
It cawed once more, a dig, I assume.
It turned its back to me, deposited a calling card in a color similar to the half eaten donut (my interpretation) onto the roof and the windshield, and flew off.
I walked into the building, a Monday exhaustion that was totally unexpected. There were boxes of donuts in the cafeteria. Folks were chewing them with vigor. A few spotted me and opened their donut-detritus filled mouths and cawed (my interpretation).
It's Spring, so birds of all sorts are happily (my interpretation) chortling around my place of work. The manufacturing facility, a 300,000 sg ft building, has a huge parking lot to allow the 500 folks here a place to leave their car/truck close to their work site so they can scoot in under the bell and make it on time.
The sprint toward the timeclock is particularly interesting on Mondays, as the under-30 set are still living the Live-for-the-Weekend lifestyle. At my kids' elementary school, during family days, relay races were held pitting the kids against the 'dults (pronounced dolts by those adorable offspring). To make things especially interesting, or to make the races equal, at the start of the race and at each exchange, the kids and the adults had to put on excessively large pants, shirts, hats, & ties. Considering the fact that, as parents, every weekday morning was a clothing battle royale to try to get your children clothed and off to school, it struck a lot of us as irony that the kids were beating our pants off in this aspect of the relay race. Who'd of thought what took 15-20 minutes every Monday through Friday, took only a minute in this competition. Size matters and we the parents had obviously missed this point. If we had only dressed them in XXL, one of the morning battles would have been won. These memories come streaming back each Monday as I see the younger employees zipping into the parking lot, leaving their windows down and their lights on, and madly running to our factory, while pulling up their pants and buttoning their shirts.But that's a different path gone down than the one I'd intended on. Sorry about that; let's get back to the birds. Our site is, as the crow flys, about 2 miles or so inland from the Delaware Bay. So, along with the usual robins, grackles, red-tailed hawks, assorted species of sparrows, we also receive visits from gulls, killdeer, and even an occasional osprey. The lord and master of our asphalt bird sanctuary is the crow. Now, everyone knows that the crow is extremely intelligent. and somewhat vicious. I realize these are all human attributes, ones that should not be attributed onto an animal. But, since I'm at this point already, let me throw in vengeful. There, a threesome of human traits all unloaded on this most admirable of birds.
Vengeful.
One Monday, while laughing in the privacy of my car at the Sprint of the Partially Clad, I was slowly driving through our parking lot in search of that elusive slot close to the building left open by a departing third shifter. A bird was standing in the middle of the parking path, not eating, just looking around. It didn't move as my car approached. I honked. It disdainfully (my interpretation) turned it's head sideways to get a better look at what was disturbing its Monday morning constitutional. I eased up slowly and honked again. It remained still, watching me. I stopped, got out of the car, and chased it off to one side. It thought so little of this disturbance and clearly saw I was no danger to it that it didn't bother taking to wing. Just simply shifted from side to side as it walked off. I got back into the car and put it in gear. The crow, beak slightly open, hopped toward the middle of the road.
Once.
Twice.
Stopped.
The winged and wingless performed this stop 'n chase two more times.
Some folks that had been running to get to their work stations had stopped, shirts mid-buttoned, to take in the drama.
Stand-off of the species.
Some of the more NRA leaning spectators threw out helpful suggestions.
"Gun it 'n run it!"
Others, seeing this as a confrontation between management and workers, just stood and took it in, filing the crow's behaviour as a possible line of action to be exercised by themselves at a later point of negotiation.
I scrounged through the car and noticed a half-eaten donut (my interpretation). Throwing it off to the side of the road right by the crow, I jumped into my car, hoping to end this confrontation. The bird didn't move for 5-10 seconds, then slowly ambled over to the donut. It looked at me one more time with disdain (my interpretation), cawed a few times, then turned its back to feast.
I drove down the aisle of cars, nary a space in passing.
I turned and finished the loop, going the other direction. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of black appeared. Hadn't had my morning coffee so I chalked it off to failing vision or synapses.
Parked the car in the next zip code, my escapades with the crow having taken a good 5 minutes and filling any parking spcaes closer to our building. I got out, locked the door, slung my pack on one shoulder, and started a briskly paced walk to the over the horizon office.
A loud caw.
I turned, about 15 feet from my car.
The crow was on the roof, standing slightly sideways.
It cawed once more, a dig, I assume.
It turned its back to me, deposited a calling card in a color similar to the half eaten donut (my interpretation) onto the roof and the windshield, and flew off.
I walked into the building, a Monday exhaustion that was totally unexpected. There were boxes of donuts in the cafeteria. Folks were chewing them with vigor. A few spotted me and opened their donut-detritus filled mouths and cawed (my interpretation).
Comments:
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
Hi there,
Just randomly hunting down people who linked to me since it's a bit rude to.... well, leave. :)
Random Gestures is now at http://floatingmyOWNboat.squarespace.com
if you'd like to come along.
Jen
Just randomly hunting down people who linked to me since it's a bit rude to.... well, leave. :)
Random Gestures is now at http://floatingmyOWNboat.squarespace.com
if you'd like to come along.
Jen
# opined by 
: 2:14 PM, May 01, 2005
: 2:14 PM, May 01, 2005
This is hilarious!
My daughter once came home with a wounded crow - broken wing. She saw him on the way home one afternoon, trying to get away from a suburban hunter ( a yellow tabby), grabbed a towel from the backseat floorboard
(don't ask) and "tented" him in a capture. We called vets, etc. to see what we should do with him. Cut a tube sock and fitted him with a white bird-sized strait jacket to keep the wing immobilized. He wore it for about 2 minutes. We kept Edgar ( yes, as in Poe) for 6 weeks. He liked be set free from his cage to roam around the kitchen, and eventually took food from our hands. We ended up giving him to a bird rescue lady who specialized in crows. Edgar never flew again, but has a happy home in a big backyard gigantic cage.
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My daughter once came home with a wounded crow - broken wing. She saw him on the way home one afternoon, trying to get away from a suburban hunter ( a yellow tabby), grabbed a towel from the backseat floorboard
(don't ask) and "tented" him in a capture. We called vets, etc. to see what we should do with him. Cut a tube sock and fitted him with a white bird-sized strait jacket to keep the wing immobilized. He wore it for about 2 minutes. We kept Edgar ( yes, as in Poe) for 6 weeks. He liked be set free from his cage to roam around the kitchen, and eventually took food from our hands. We ended up giving him to a bird rescue lady who specialized in crows. Edgar never flew again, but has a happy home in a big backyard gigantic cage.
<< Home Verging on Pertinence Just some more disposable thoughts clogging up the hinterlands
