This morning on my walk as I was going through the parking lot next to The Broken Cup, I saw a huge bird on the ground. It was about the size of an adult chicken! As I got closer I saw that it was a Crow. It’s funny, but because of its size, my mind thought - “I wonder if you can eat crow?” Then I saw the joke in the thought that I just had and I laughed at myself!
So as I did my walk, I thought about the expression “Having to eat crow.” This saying is well known here in the South and most of us have had to eat crow a few times in our lives when we have bragged or thought we knew it all. And depending on how big the brag, we have had to eat more than just a few bites of crow. (smile)
According to grammarist.com “To eat crow means to admit a humiliating defeat. Crow is an unappetizing food, even listed in the book of Leviticus in the Bible as an animal that is not to be eaten.” Several sources on the internet say that the phrase originally came from the Saturday Evening Post in 1850. The story was about a not too bright New York farmer who had boarders who challenge him to eat a “boiled crow.” But today the phrase has been shortened to “eat crow.”
I decided that I wanted to learn more about the Crow. I know that if the Bible says not to eat a certain bird it’s because it’s considered “unclean” meaning that it eats foods that are dead or very germy. These items are not purified through the bird's digestive system so they weren’t considered good for our human bodies to consume. But, later in the New Testament in the book of Acts, God declared to Peter that He (God) had made all foods clean.
This spring I had some Crows living in a tree in the yard next door. I could hear their “Caw, caw, caw” as they would scare away predators from their nest. This morning on my walk I kept seeing Crows in different locations as they scouted the neighborhood for food. Today they were the predator that was being run off. There were 3 or 4 Crows that were trying to rob the eggs in a Mockingbird’s nest. But, the Mockingbird was bravely defending his nest and sent these pesky Crows packing.
These Crows then flew over to investigate another tree and I soon heard the squawk of a Blue Jay who sent them on their way once again. After that those Crows left the park to search for breakfast somewhere else.
When I first began to write about birds I watched a program on PBS. It was about research done on Crows. The researchers doing the research found out how smart Crows actually are.
Crows have large brains and they use them. They have been seen dropping nuts in traffic to get the cars to crack the shells and then they swoop down to pick up the nuts when the cars stop at the red light. Crows create and use tools made from sticks to accomplish tasks that they want to do. They have been seen using sharpened forked twigs to make a hook and use it to scoop larvae and worms from holes in wood. There are only four species known to use tools - humans, orangutans, chimpanzees and New Caledonian Crows according to arapahoelibraries.org.
If Crows think that someone is watching them, they will pretend to hide their food in their cache, but really have the food hidden under their feathers and bury it later in a different location. Since Crows are tricky, they watch each other and steal food from each other’s hidden stashes!
I think that doing research out my kitchen window “Look at the birds of the air…” Matthew 6:26 might be a nice way to make a living.
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