crow talk

did i ever mention that i understand the language of crows? well, not really, not in a way crows understand other crows, i guess. but if i listen to a couple of russians talking, i can usually tell if they’re quarreling, or joking, or flirting. the same with crows.

i my old town there were quite a lot of crows. i lived in a top floor apartment, right under the roof, and i could hear the crows all the time. after a few months of listening to them i could tell they mainly used three different calls: a loud, open cawing repeated three or four times that generally meant something like “look what i’ve got!” or “come here, i found food or something shiny”, then a very similar open cawing, slightly more aggressive, that usually meant “piss off, this is my chimney, antenna or branch” and then a noticably deeper, rougher croak with almost closed beak that seemed to be more or less an “i am here, where are you” call.

here in cologne i noticed, crows are saying different things. they do that “piss off” caw a lot, but they don’t seem to do that reassuring small talk. i miss that “i am here, where are you” croak. it used to soothe me, like it was meant for me. the only times these crows here seem to actually stick together is when a flock of seagulls inquires into our neighborhood, mostly on market days when there’s plenty of rubbish left in the square. then these crows become all territorial and convoke their kin to rally against the gulls. but other than that, they don’t seem to care for their fellow crows.

it makes me kind of sad, and yesterday when i was still lying in bed listening to the early morning crow-and-gull quarrels it came to me that this is something i don’t like about cologne. not the crows, no, they are behaving perfectly naturally. the difference is that the crows of my old hometown were rooks (corvus frugileus), a very social species of crows, while the crows here in cologne are carrion crows (corvus corone), who are more solitary and only flock on certain occasions.

no, what makes me sad about cologne is that people here are just the same. as friendly and open and proverbially cheerful people here are, everybody seems to care only about his own thing. they may “flock” for certain occasions, like carnival, but they don’t connect to support each other naturally. they don’t group to get the best out of each other. like everyone wants to start his own band, and it has to be better and better known as any other local band. of course you don’t admire or praise other bands, no, all the others are just silly schoolboys. if clubs and bars plan parties, they don’t check out if there are any other big parties on that weekend that they will have to share the crowds with. no, they just have a bigger, better party, and hand out more flyers. no one seems to speak to each other, to exchange experiences or compare notes. it’s all about competition.

of course i’m generalizing, there are exceptions, probably more than i know. that’s just the first impression i had, and i may be doing the folks of cologne injustice. maybe this is all perfectly natural behaviour for humans and people would still be gathering nuts and picking bones in front of their caves if there hadn’t been any competition. but i still miss that purely social “i am here, where are you” call in the early mornings.

~ by bine on November 24, 2007.