More crow!

 

More crow!

Anvilcloud suggested that I save him some trouble by finding out the origins of ‘something to crow about.’ It means that an event or result is worthy of being bragged about, but all I have been able to discover is that it is a phrase that has been in use since the 1500s and is associated with the morning crowing of cockerels (roosters). Cockerels crow loudly to assert their dominance over their domain. 

The American expression, ‘to eat crow’ means to admit that one is wrong, particularly when a position has been robustly defended. It implies a degree of humiliation and arose from around the middle of the 19^th century. Humorous stories recounted how a conceited farmer was tricked into ‘eating boiled crow,’ which tasted foul. The idiom was shortened to ‘eating crow.’

‘Upstart crow’ was a description applied to William Shakespeare about 1592. Whether it was intended as an insult to demean him or used as a means of amplifying his eminence is probably a theme for a doctoral thesis (it becomes ever more difficult to find suitable subjects for dissertation in literature) One suggestion is that Shakespeare was denigrated as an impudent actor who had ambitions to become a playwright. That leads on to further discussion about who ‘really’ wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

‘Upstart Crow’ was a 2016 BBC television series written by Ben Elton. This excellent sitcom loosely traced the beginnings of Shakespeare’s life as a writer in London. It starred David Mitchell as the playwright, and had a superb supporting cast, including Liza Tarbuck, Mark Heap, and Gemma Whelan.

‘Stone the crows’ has its roots in early 20th century Australia, when farmers threw stones at crows which raided crops or attacked newborn lambs. It migrated to the UK and became ‘Stone me!’ as an expression of surprise.  

Crows’ feet are the tiny wrinkles that form over the years at the outer corners of the eyes. They start to appear from the late twenties and are the result of repeated smiling. They are more kindly referred to as laughter lines.

Crows are revered as messengers in many cultures and folk lore tells many tales. In Ancient Rome crows were used to divine the future. In later centuries, a single crow over a house foretold death and crows were believed to transport a person’s soul to the afterlife. A popular saying was ‘a crow on the thatch, soon death lifts the latch.’

The thought that crows are associated with death and mourning is borne out by observations of behaviour around a dead crow. The first crow to see the body called out and soon others flew in to join in a strident chorus of loud cries. The explanation was that the ceremony helped the crows to warn of danger and to cope with the reality of death.

I have not seen this happening with crows but have seen magpies behave in a similar manner. A cat carried off a young magpie and the other magpies, in all the trees around, set up a cacophony of grief, for that is what it seemed to be, that continued for almost half an hour. It was deafening and impossible to ignore.

As the crow flies

 

As the crow flies

One of the crows we used to feed in the woods.

This is a frequently used idiom to describe the distance between two points. It means the most direct route, ignoring natural or man-made barriers. A journey by foot or in a vehicle may take eight miles, but if it were possible to take an unswerving path, it might only be four or five miles.

Crows do not literally fly in straight lines, but their flight is steady with little of the dipping and swooping associated with some other birds. The expression may have arisen from the fact that crows are noisy and noticeable and can often be seen beating alone across the sky.

The earliest printed record of the phrase occurred in 1761 in the Irish periodical ‘The Gentleman’s and London Magazine.’ It was used in that publication to discuss distances in America.  More than sixty years later, it was used by Charles Dickens in his 1838 novel ‘Oliver Twist’ and came into popular parlance thereafter as a way of estimating distances and travelling times before maps were commonplace.

SkyWatch Friday Season 4 Episode 34

Barry took these photographs during our walks this week on different days. It was good to be out in bright, brisk weather, though the wind was keen.

Not a thieving magpie in the bare branches of this tree but a retrieving crow. We are watched and followed by crows on the days we carry treats for the dogs. Treats are thrown into the pond/s to encourage Frodo to take a bath (though often he plunges in of his own accord) and those he misses are spotted and plucked from the water by the vigilant, clever crows.

Click on the photo to reveal two ponds. These are deep - even deeper at present after our cold, wet winter - and are frequented by three mallards in the Spring. Two drakes and a duck divide their time between the various ponds in the forest but go elsewhere to nest and raise their young so we never discover which drake is the chosen swain!
Thank you to the SkyWatch team for their hard work in organising and hosting this meme. Click here to gaze at other skies.

In the garden, hanging out the clothes

Though it indicates the paucity of my daily life I must confess that one of my small joys is hanging out the washing and then watching it as it dances on the line. Sometimes, of course, it hangs sullenly refusing to dry but even then it attains a wonderful clean smell that no tumble dryer could ever achieve. When I'm in the garden arranging the laundry – socks all marching in the same direction, towels snapped straight and then pegged, shirts and blouses with their sleeves pulled into shape – I relish the fresh air, sometimes by the bucketful, sunshine if I'm lucky and always birds. Yesterday my ear caught the distinctive sound of a distressed Crow. I looked up and saw a Crow chasing a Sparrowhawk. A Sparrowhawk's diet is largely made up of small birds caught on the wing but even a young Crow would be too big for it to catch. Perhaps the Crow was indicating that it had first call on any small birds in the vicinity though I think it's uncommon for Crows to prey on young birds that have left the nest.

A rat a day makes the rifle pay

I took my camera upstairs last night, left it on the bedroom windowsill and waited for morning. I didn't sit up all night of course, though I didn't sleep particularly well, listening from pre-dawn for a heron. Naturally, since I was prepared, no herons deigned to grace our garden.
About half-past six Barry glanced out of the window and spotted a rat. Quietly, he readied his rifle, took aim, fired and fired and fired until the magazine was empty and the rat, killed by the first shot, lay motionless under the lilac. We both watched then for the rat remover but it didn't appear so we went to drink our morning tea. The next time we looked out the rat was in a different location, some yards from where it had met its end. Then down flew a crow and proceeded to tuck into the corpse, which was probably still warm.

At half-past eight, when I hung out the first laundry load, the now mangled body was still on the ground. It was headless but its little paws were still attached, looking rather pathetic. Only two of the dogs took any notice of the fatality. Frodo the Faller approached it cautiously and sniffed while Jenna-the-Labrador, remembering she was a retriever, looked puzzled and wondered if she should pick up. I was pleased that she didn't make any attempt at it.

By ten o'clock the cadaver had disappeared.

Barry wondered why the crow hadn't taken the rat away but chosen to eat at least part of it in the garden, where he was vulnerable; remember, crows are shot at, too! (but not in our garden.) The answer was obvious to me – the body had so much lead in it that it was too heavy to remove until parts of it had been consumed on the killing field. Crows are big strong birds but there's a limit to how much they can carry. Crows would have had to work in tandem to carry it off intact on a stretcher.