Witness
I witnessed a murder yesterday. Yes. Sitting at the desk in my study, I looked out of the window, across the street there was a murder. Unmistakable!
I watched silently, in awe, transfixed. But where was the murderer? What was the motive? And who was the victim?
I'm not one to accept the possibility of victimless crimes... that's just a flight of fancy. What I saw looked evil. And a murder is evil.
I don't want to be alarmist, but I witnessed another murder today, emerging simultaneously from the trees across the street.
And their noise... it was bloody criminal!
- Category: True Stories Told As Fiction
- Tags: A murder of crows
6 comments add one below
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Christopher almost 7 years ago
Fantastic, Neville!
It's amazing when you look up and see the interesting names for a gathering of a species of animal. And murder is one of the strangest.
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George Stephens almost 7 years ago
First the pigeons and now the crows... not a fan of birds, are you? LOL
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Neville Hunt almost 7 years ago
Thanks, Christopher. Murder is indeed a very strange one. There is some apocryphal evidence online of the mediaeval beginnings of the murderousness of crows. It seems they all stand around in a gang as jury to see justice done to one of their kind.
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Neville Hunt almost 7 years ago
I do love birds, George, with just one or two exceptions, pigeons and crows being two. I love little birds, wrens, robins, thrushes, blackbirds, goldfinches, other finches and tits and feed them sunflower hearts which I buy by the 20Kilo bag. And I love the gorgeous Red Kite, which we are fortunate to see a lot of round here.... but the horrid, murderous little crows tend to give them a good seeing to whenever they circle over the trees across the road!
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Neville Hunt almost 7 years ago
Thanks very much, Drew. They may be annoying, but when you see them rise up as one, it's nonetheless impressive. Maybe an alternative collective noun could be an 'uprising' of crows, although starlings take some beating on that score, or so the murmur goes.
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Neville Hunt almost 7 years ago
Leicester Square in the winter used to be a fantastic free starling show, but not so many around now I think. It's on my bucket list to see the really big murmurations. One day!
