I thought this was worth forwarding.

>Count on Crows
>
>They're tomorrow's bird for all the right reasons, says a local employee
>
>By Ian Frazier, DoubleTake
>
>
>Lately, I've been working for the crows, and so far it's the best job I ever
>had. I fell into it by a combination of preparedness and luck. I'd been
>casting around a bit, looking for a new direction in my career, and one
>afternoon when I was out on my walk I happened to see some crows fly by. One
>of them landed on a telephone wire just above my head. I looked at him for a
>moment, and then on impulse I made a skchhh noise with my teeth and lips. He
>seemed to like that; I saw his tail make a quick upward bobbing motion at
>the sound. Encouraged, I made the noise again, and again his tail bobbed. He
>looked at me closely with one eye, then turned his beak and looked at me
>with the other, meanwhile readjusting his feet on the wire. After a few
>minutes, he cawed and flew off to join his companions. I had a good feeling
>I couldn't put into words. Basically, I thought the meeting had gone well,
>and as it turned out, I was right. When I got home there was a message from
>the crows saying I had the job.
>
>That first interview proved indicative of the crows' business style. They
>are very informal and relaxed, unlike their public persona, and mostly they
>leave me alone. I'm given a general direction of what they want done, but
>the specifics of how to do it are up to me. For example, the crows have long
>been unhappy about public misperceptions of them: that they raid other
>birds' nests, drive songbirds away, eat garbage and dead things, can't sing,
>etc.-all of which is completely untrue once you know them. My first task was
>to take these misperceptions and turn them into a more positive image. I
>decided the crows needed a slogan that emphasized their strengths as a
>species. The slogan I came up with was Crows: We Want to Be Your Only Bird.?
>I told this to the crows, they loved it, and we've been using it ever since.
>
>Crows speak a dialect of English rather like that of the remote hill people
>of the Alleghenies. If you're not accustomed to it, it can be hard to
>understand. In their formal speech they are as measured and clear as a radio
>announcer from the Midwest-though, as I say, they are seldom formal with me.
>(For everyday needs, of course, they caw.) Their unit of money is the empty
>soda bottle, which trades at a rate of about 20 to the dollar. In the recent
>years of economic boom, the crows have quietly amassed great power. With
>investment capital based on their nationwide control of everything that gets
>run over on the roads, they have bought a number of major companies.
>Pepsi-Cola is now owned by the crows, as well as Knight Ridder newspapers
>and the company that makes Tombstone frozen pizzas. The New York
>Metropolitan Opera is now wholly crow-owned.
>
>In order to stay competitive, the crows recently merged with the ravens.
>This was done not only for reasons of growth but also to better serve those
>millions who live and work near crows. In the future, both crows and ravens
>will be known by the group name of Crows, so if you see a bird and wonder
>which it is, you don't have to waste any time: Officially and legally, it's
>a crow. The net result of this, of course, is that now there are a lot more
>crows-which is exactly what the crows want. Studies they've sponsored show
>that there could be anywhere from 10 to a thousand times more crows than
>there already are, with no strain on carrying capacity. A healthy increase
>in crow numbers would make basic services like cawing loudly outside your
>bedroom window at six in the morning available to all. In this area, as in
>many others, the crows are thinking very long term.
>
>If more people in the future get a chance to know crows as I have done, they
>are in for a real treat. Because I must say, the crows have been absolutely
>wonderful to me. I like them not just as highly profitable business
>associates but as friends. Their aggressive side, admittedly quite strong in
>disputes with scarlet tanagers and other birds, has been nowhere in evidence
>around me. I could not wish for any companions more charming. The other day
>I was having lunch with an important crow in the park-me sipping from a
>drinking fountain while he ate peanuts taken from a squirrel. In between
>sharp downward raps of his bill on the peanut shell to poke it open, he drew
>me out with seemingly artless questions. Sometimes the wind would push the
>shell to one side and he would steady it with one large foot while
>continuing the raps with his beak. And all the while, he kept up his
>attentive questioning, making me feel that, business considerations aside,
>he was truly interested in what I had to say.
>
>Crows: We Want to Be Your Only Bird.? I think this slogan is worth
>repeating, because there's a lot behind it. Of course, the crows don't
>literally want (or expect) to be the only species of bird left on the
>planet. They admire and enjoy other kinds of birds and even hope that there
>will still be some remaining in limited numbers out of doors as well as in
>zoos and museums. But in terms of daily usage, the crows hope that you will
>think of them first when you're looking for those quality-of-life
>intangibles usually associated with birds. Singing, for example: Crows
>actually can sing, and beautifully, too; so far, however, they have not been
>given the chance. In the future, with fewer other birds around, they feel
>that they will be.
>
>Whether they're good-naturedly harassing an owl caught out in daylight, or
>carrying bits of sticks and used gauze bandage in their beaks to make their
>colorful, free-form nests, or simply landing on the sidewalk in front of you
>with their characteristic double hop, the crows have become a part of the
>fabric of our days. When you had your first kiss, the crows were there,
>flying around nearby. They were cawing overhead at your college graduation,
>and worrying a hamburger wrapper through the wire mesh of a trash container
>in front of the building when you went in for your first job interview, and
>flapping past the door of the hospital where you held your first-born child.
>The crows have always been with us, and they promise that by growing the
>species at a predicted rate of 17 percent a year, in the future they'll be
>around even more.
>
>The crows aren't the last Siberian tigers, and they don't pretend to be.
>They're not interested in being a part of anybody's dying tradition. But
>then how many of us deal with Siberian tigers on a regular basis? Usually,
>the nontech stuff we deal with-besides humans-is squirrels, pigeons,
>raccoons, rats, mice, and a few kinds of bugs. The crows are confident
>enough to claim that they will be able to compete effectively even with
>these familiar and well-entrenched providers. Indeed, they have already
>begun to displace pigeons in the category of walking around under park
>benches with chewing gum stuck to their feet. Scampering nervously in
>attics, sneaking through pet doors, and gnawing little holes in things are
>all in the crows' expansion plans.
>
>I would not have taken this job if I did not believe, strongly and deeply,
>in the crows. And I do. I could go on and on about the crows' generosity,
>taste in music, sense of family values; the "buddy system" they invented to
>use against other birds, the work they do for the Shriners, and more. But
>they're paying me a lot of bottles to say this-I can't expect everybody to
>believe me. I do ask, if you're unconvinced, that you take this simple test:
>Next time you're looking out a window or driving in a car, notice if there's
>a crow in sight. Then multiply that one crow by lots and lots of crows, and
>you'll get an idea of what the next few years will bring. In the bird
>department, no matter what, the future is going to be almost all crows,
>almost all the time. That's just a fact.
>
>So why not just accept it, and learn to appreciate it, as so many of us have
>already? The crows are going to influence our culture and our world in
>beneficial ways we can't even imagine today. Much of what they envision I am
>not yet at liberty to disclose, but I can tell you that it is magnificent.
>They are going to be birds like we've never seen. In their dark, jewel-like
>eyes burns an ambition to be more and better and to fly around all over the
>place constantly. They're smart, they're driven, and they're comin' at us.
>The crows : Let's get ready to welcome tomorrow's only bird.
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Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-879-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-879-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html