Creepy Crows

This morning I was awakened about 4 a.m. by loud, insistent cawing. LOUD, insistent cawing. I listened for a couple of minutes, then got up and dressed and went out on the front porch to see what I could see.

The trees in front of the house were black with crows. The trees behind the house and in the park were even blacker. Every so often, a bunch would start flying, wheeling over the house and then settling back in the trees again.

The Emory House is a dead ringer for the Bates Motel (well, not the motel exactly, but the big house on the hill). In fact, second-empire Victorians are the quintessential haunted houses: very high, spooky and mysterious. With the moon high above it, black branches outlined against the pre-dawn sky, and thousands and thousands of birds cawing and swooping, my house was giving off a very Hitchcockian vibe. I started to snap a few pictures, and then I thought, what if a few of these guys decide for some reason known only to crows to divebomb me?

Crows are my very favorite birds. But thirty thousand of them ganging up around me was really creepy. For a moment I savored the eerie bird happening. Then I went back in the house.