During this past week, I had two incidents with crows. The first occurred while traveling on Route 6 when I noticed a crow feeding on a dead opossum, which was lying in the middle of my traffic lane. As I drove closer to the possum, the crow flew at the last possible minute.

This is not unusual, as I am sure that many of you have noticed a crow doing the same thing. However, what made this unusual was that the crow waited too long and flew into the side of a car coming in the opposite direction. Although the crow was dazed, it was able to flutter to the side of the roadway and hop to the weeds.

I stopped to check on the crow, and it was nowhere in sight.

Crows are survivors. A crow’s timing is so precise that it leaves the dead carcass just before a vehicle arrives. The crow will fly in a small circle as the car passes and then land again on the dead animal. Even on our interstate highways, where vehicles travel at 65 mph and faster, a crow can avoid being struck.

However, crows can get into trouble.

The second crow incident occurred in our backyard. I heard the blue jays making an awful racket in the spruce tree in our backyard. At first I believed that our neighbor’s cat was causing the blue jays to make the awful racket. Then I noticed that it was coming from high in the spruce tree, and every so often I would hear a strange raspy aah call.

A crow moved into my view, and I watched as the blue jays repeatedly flew into the crow, hitting with their beaks.

When hit, the crow would let out with the raspy aah call, which I interpreted as an ouch. Finally, the blue jays were able to drive the crow from the tree. As the crow flew away, I could see it had been successful in getting a meal from the blue jays’ nest. The blue jays stayed in hot pursuit until they were out of my sight.

The crow is a remarkable bird and some even say that it is our smartest bird. Even though humans have always considered the crow an enemy and has killed them indiscriminately, the crow has thrived on our activities.

Most farmers have no love for crows due to their destructive way of pulling up seed corn after sprouting. However, crows help farmers by eating large numbers of June bugs, grasshoppers, grubs and other troublesome insects. In fact, a crow will eat almost anything, including carrion.

It is estimated during one growing season, crows will eat 19 bushels of insects on an average farm.

If you have ever been in the woods when the sun is rising, you know that the crow is one of the first birds heard as the forest wakes up. It isn’t necessary to be in the country or woods to see and hear the crows because they are at home in our cities as well as in rural areas.

Other than man and the great-horned owl, which is its chief predator, a crow does not have many enemies. If during daylight hours, a band, of crows, finds an owl sleeping, they attack the owl with such vigor that eventually the owl is forced from its perch. The crows will chase and harass the poor owl for hours on end.

These crow/owl incidents rarely end in death for either, but on rare occasions, a crow will get too close to the owl’s sharp talons and end up as a meal. At night, an owl gets its chance to even the score. Owls have been known to take adult crows off the roost and young from the nest.

I have also read in the Game News Field Notes where a band of crows had successfully killed an owl by piercing its skull with their sharp beaks. This goes to prove that these owl/crow fights are exactly that.

A crow’s beak is used as a hammer, probe, hook and dagger, all of which are very impressive weapons. The bill, which is designed with a system of hinges and levers, enables the crow to open its beak widely, allowing it to swallow large items with ease.

The following are a few of the many sayings that are associated with the crow:

• “As the crow flies” means the shortest distance between two places

• “To eat crow” is to be forced to do something extremely distasteful

• “A crow’s nest” is a platform on the main mast of a sailing ship (a place where a person has a good view)

• Many people are worried about getting “crow’s feet,” which are nothing more than wrinkles spreading out from the corners of the eyes.

• All carpenters have an iron crowbar in their toolbox. The name refers to the end of the tool. One end is said to represent the bird’s beak, and the other end, which is shaped into a two-pronged fork, appears as a bird’s foot.

Our common crow, which is both loved and hated, is probably one of the best-known birds in America. Amazingly little study on the crow has been done by researchers. We have experienced a drop in the crow population, which is due to the West Nile Virus.

James Russell Lowell wrote this about the crow, “Yet there are few things more melodious than his caw on a clear morning as it drops to you filtered through five hundred fathoms of crisp, blue air.”

Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.