Halo of Darkness

-
One cold rainy autumn evening several years ago, I went to pick up Sofia from the Customs Canada Revenue Agency building (tax building) on Heron Road (it is the building just south of the red blip).

It was an evening saturated with gloomy foreboding. The trees were bare and the wind drove a chilling rain. The roads were greasy and shiny from the oily black rain. A tumultuous and turbulant wasteland of scarred clouds boiled in the sky.

As I approached the building, I noticed what I thought was some weird atmospheric phenomena around the top of the building - a swirling ring of dark cloud, a freak eddy of winds herding noxious nightime vapours into a black halo around the building.

When I got out of the car, I realized that it was not some freak wind and clouds, but thousands upon thousands of crows circling the building, cawing loudly.

I have no idea if this is normal crow behaviour, but it certainly was very atmospheric.

Comments

BarbaraMG said…
Crow's are creepy birds and they were doing on purpose to freak people out.
May 21, 2006 12:10 AM
Prince Romp said…
I think they mistaken the building as 'scare crow'. It reminds me of this movie...Jeepers creepers.
May 21, 2006 4:11 AM
Richard said…
It was definitely something out of a horror film or Hitchcock's "The Birds"
May 21, 2006 6:48 AM
Lunafish said…
We have a similar phenomenon in Austin Texas by the Congress Street Bridge with Bats.
May 21, 2006 9:06 AM
my imperfect offering said…
Ooh, that does sound creepy. No wonder they call it a "murder" of crows...
May 21, 2006 10:08 AM
Richard said…
lunafish: that's a pretty good picture of what I saw (I did look for pictures of swarming birds / bats, but found nothing terribly suitable).

MIO: murder of crows, wake of vultures, conspiracy of politicians, frenzy of lawyers - there are all sorts of interesting collective nouns (I made the last two up - rather cynically, I might add :-)
May 21, 2006 10:54 AM
Grumpy but sweet said…
Something really similar happens here in the Netherlands in the Autumn. I think its fabulous. But I am strange that way. They all roost in a few trees together, and then take off in a fabulous wave of black movement.

Here is a link to someone else's pictures of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-challenge/106300792/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-challenge/115944147/
May 23, 2006 7:18 AM
Richard said…
Ingrid, pretty cool!

I wish I'd had a camera with me - although, I would have needed high speed film.
May 23, 2006 10:29 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chinese Wisdom Concerning Money

-
[19September-2007 @ 17:11 EST: Revised preamble. This page still gets the most search hits: There is no Anthony de Croud. The e-mail is SPAM. I post things that pique my fancy at the moment. I like the 8 precepts, but the rest of the e-mail is junk. However, I thought it fair to post everything in its entirety. I did not write the e-mail. I did not forward the e-mail. I strongly encourage you not to forward it either. (I also encourage you to reply to whomever sent you the e-mail and tell them you don't appreciate getting junk mail.)] Received this in our e-mail (English translation follows): PRECEPTO CHINO SOBRE EL DINERO EL DINERO PUEDE COMPRAR UNA CASA, PERO NO UN HOGAR, EL DINERO PUEDE COMPRAR UN RELOJ, PERO NO EL TIEMPO. EL DINERO PUEDE COMPRAR UNA CAMA, PERO NO EL SUEÑO. EL DINERO PUEDE COMPRAR UN LIBRO, PERO NO EL CONOCIMIENTO. EL DINERO PUEDE PAGAR UN MÉDICO, PERO NO LA SALUD. EL DINERO PUEDE COMPRAR UNA POSICIÓN, PERO NO EL RESPETO. EL DINERO PUEDE COMPRAR LA SANGRE, PERO
Read more

Risky Singapore?

-
CBC Radio had a documentary on Singapore and its lack of risk taking yesterday (only just heard it this morning). Since I know there are 1 or 2 Singaporean readers of this blog, I am curious to know how accurate the documentary is. I find that people often have mistaken impressions about other cultures and people. You can hear it here .
Read more

Why you should regularly visit your dentist.

-
I hadn't been to my dentist since May-2004 (normally I went on weekends, but since Sofia and the kids moved to Montreal, I am not in Ottawa on the weekends). Last night, as I was munching on some cashews, I felt a pain in one of my molars and then some grit in my mouth. I went and washed it out, assuming that maybe there had been a stone or something amount the cashews. Turns out I noticed a hole in the surface of the molar (top right, second from the back, my wisdom teeth were removed years ago). Fishing around for grit in my mouth, it looked like crumbled filling. So I assumed that my filling had cracked and crumbled and come out. Went to the dentist this morning, he took an x-ray and came back with bad news. I have a large cavity under the filling, which gave way. The filling did not fall out, but rather impacted into the space of the cavity. He did not rework the filling, since the cavity is very near the root - cleaning it out would likely result in exposing the root. As some
Read more