05 - Crow hierarchy and the love of reading
2022 is here! Work has been unusually slow so I found myself with a lot of time this January. I spent part of that time loafing around and the rest wondering if it's okay to to be loafing around. (Somebody please give me a gig, but also don't so I can laze some more?) Freelancing has its ups and downs, one must be prepared for it. My war against my need to be useful and productive continues to go on. Books, K Dramas, and a tedious elimination diet is what I spent my time on. I finally compiled some work, updated my website, and posted some of it on Instagram. I had to deal with my fear of putting up work out there. What's the worst that can happen? The work will be terrible and everyone will take the time to tell me that it's terrible, I'll consequently have to hide in a cave never to return to civilization. Thankfully, it wasn't quite that bad and I haven't had to frequent any caves yet.
How did the first month of 2022 go for you?
⭐️ Hi, I'm Sachi and this is Currents where I talk about animals, birds, and books. If you want to unsubscribe, click the link below. If you enjoy this, please share it with a friend/ random acquaintance/ colleague/ neighborhood raccoon. Thank you for being here! 🌻
🦅 Crow hierarchy, kites, and owls
When cases caused by the omicron variant began to shoot up and curfews began to be set, I instantly prepared myself for another lockdown. This preparation doesn't involve stocking up on food or books but getting my head out of the window and reacquainting myself with the comical animals and birds that live outside. If you read my newsletter during last year's lockdown you'd know that I can watch birds and animals closely for long stretches of time. It keeps me from losing my mind completely.
I had a staring match with a golden oriole. I'm not sure it was aware of being in a staring match at all. My parents and I watched this beautiful yellow creature in wonder when it decided to spend an hour outside my window. Maybe I was the one unaware of the staring match. I watched a squirrel jump extraordinarily high, in strange trajectories, making patterns in the air from one branch to another. I had a staring match with a squirrel hollering (chirping loudly) at the window. It was 100% unaware that it was in a staring match and left soon after it noticed me watching it. I felt its judgment, do you not have a life, human?
I also watched crows. Ordinary cacophonous crows.
My family loves seafood. We buy our fish from one fisherwoman who delivers what we want to our door. Along with the fish we ordered, she gives us a packet of fish heads and organs which we feed the crows. It's infinitely better than throwing it out with our trash. There's a particular eave where we leave fish for them. I hide behind a plant to watch them eat. Crows arrive almost immediately but there's a system to this. There's a crow, who I call the intern crow, who has to call everyone else and wait until they're done so it can eat. The intern crow is small to medium sized crow. It waits patiently on the papaya tree branch, right next to the eave, until the others come by. A few crows follow. Crows come in all shapes and sizes and different levels of intelligence. There are realistic crows who know how much their beaks can carry, they return for second and third helpings. Then there are the clueless ones who try to carry more than they can fit in their little beaks and inevitably drop that large piece of fish. Some of them take a smaller piece and leave. The others stare at that large piece in horror, as if the size of their beak was a surprise to them, and calculate ways to carry that piece with them. While this urgent cogitating occurs, another crow inevitably takes that piece away. This has happened more times than I can count. Various attempts are made to snatch their pieces of choice before someone else swoops in. The interns eventually eat what's left, including whatever liquid oozed out. There's absolutely nothing left when we check the eave an hour later. All crows leave happy and well fed, hopefully including the intern crow.
Around 50 meters away from this eve used to be two massive trees. One crashed into my car last year because of the oddly named cyclone and the other remains. The one that fell was the home of a family of kites and the one left standing belongs to the owl. Now, I don't know if animals share space after natural disasters strike the way humans (try to) do. The kites weren't to be seen for months. The owl remained. On this particular day, I saw kites circling in the sky. When the kite drops by for some fish, all crows have to retreat. It's a law of nature (apparently). The intern and leader crow are no different. In the hierarchy of birds, the kite comes first. While tossing the fish heads and fins, I accidentally dropped the bag which still had a few pieces in it. The intern crow and a few clever ones had only just arrived. A kite immediately swooped in and took a piece. Kites are incredibly graceful and quick. The next kite swooped in and took the bag with it. They went towards the owl's trees where I assume they are nesting. The crows took a while before they returned cautiously. A kite continued to circle over the area. It swooped again and grabbed some more fish. The cycle repeated. Crows retreated and returned slowly. The kite then did something it never did before. It swooped in just to scare the crows. No fish was missing so I knew it didn't pick up any. It did this a few times. The weary crows didn't know what to do.
Eventually, the kite settled on the terrace of a nearby building and the crows could finally eat, even if they were on their little toes (talons?) throughout.
📚 BOOKS
⭐️ The Velocity of Being by Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrick (Non-Fiction) - This book is AMAZING. You can't resist the urge to dive deep into a book after reading this. It is a collection of letters by artists, writers, scientists, musicians and all sorts of cool people to young readers about why they should read and how it made those cool people who they are today. Each letter is paired with an exquisite illustration which makes flipping through this book such a delight!
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (Non-Fiction) - What she talks about in this book makes so much sense and it is so important but it felt a tad wordy to me. I like the point Brene Brown tries to make in books and videos, I don't enjoy how it's articulated. Just a personal preference.
Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett (Fiction) - A race of aliens have to be saved and a kid has to do it. That's it. I enjoyed reading this very much because I felt like I was a child again. It was simple and fun without asking much of me, like many children's books do. I loved it.
Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett (Fiction) - I bought the Johnny Maxwell trilogy at a secondhand bookstore. There was no way I wouldn't get to this one. In this, Johnny, rather suddenly, begins to see and talk to ghosts. The responsibility of saving the cemetery that houses these ghosts also rests on the shoulders of this kid.
📄 ARTICLES
Jenny Odell on why we need to learn to do nothing: ‘It's a reminder that you're alive’
♥️ THINGS I'M LOVING ONLINE
What would the world look like without humans?
Lee Sangsoo's playful sculpture
Archisuits : Fashion for hostile architecture.
Everyday objects as perfect geometric shapes
Soviet era houses recreated as functional goods
Archigram founder Peter Cook's exhibition on city landscapes
Nervous Chairs : Channeling our collective anxiety
Scrumptious jigsaws - if only they were edible
Aerial photography of Utah's Great Salt Lake - they resemble otherworldly candy landscapes
2021, in 6 minutes (mostly what happened in America with other countries peppered in)
Roxane Gay's book club selections from January - September [(they're mentioned at the end of the article) what is on your list to read in 2022?]
___________
Until next time.
Warmly,
Sachi