there were these crows

Walking home from Shoreline Writers' group this afternoon I noticed that the sky was covered with crows - like fleas jumping on a dog's blanket. They were way up hight at first, reeling and plunging in some kind of line dance in the sky choreography. There were a few around the edges, clustered on trees near the shore of the inlet, but they joined in to make probably about 300 up there all at once. The sky was thick with cloud and dark purply grey. It was about 4pm, but already darkening, mostly because of those clouds. The crows were pretty evenly spread over a big part of the sky. The sound of the cars and trucks on the highway overwhelmed their voices until a change in the wind brought them down to me. They were clattering and cawing and they swooped lower until they were so close I could see the way they pumped their wings to rise and spread them to soar and turn. I noticed that the feathers on the edges of their wings separated like fingers but with pointy ends and a grey cast on the underneath. It was startling and beautiful and eery. The whole spectacle lasted for about 5 minutes as I passed beneath them. I kept walking but turned and walked backwards for a while to watch them as the whole sky full of them moved south and over the ridge. Now that was something to see.

question: who knows the purpose of crows?

mompoet - looking at the sky