Crows were up early this morning too, and already having a snack

While driving to the Southcenter Mall at 6 am this morning (okay, I admit it, I was one of those in line at GI Joe's to see if I could snag one of those $500 gift cards. I didn't.) Anyway, after giving up on that and driving up Central, I saw a batch of crows in the road eating the carcass of a poor squirrel that had gotten smacked in the middle of the night.

They'd reluctantly hop away as the car neared, and then get back to their feast. My daughter isn't fond of this member of the corvid family, after watching a crow peck a baby pigeon to death that had fallen from its nest. But I like crows, and steller's jays. They are loud, but smart and I swear some of the bird feeder bunch in the back yard seem to know me. I rescued one of their tribe (a jay) and have the scar on my hand to prove it.

I want to also talk about the crow commute. True, lots of birds are on the flyway to the south these days, but each day, there are hundreds of crows that fly south each morn, and then north, back up the Kent Valley each evening at about dusk. I have no idea where they nest for the night. But each day like clockwork, you can see the bunch overhead.

On Halloween, they must have all taken a break at the Scenic Hill cemetery in Kent near my house. Hundreds of crows pecked among the graves and the overflow was on either side of the road. Made me want to go home and pop in "The Birds."