The sky went black. Piercing screams grew louder and louder, as a murder of crows, soaring high above the sky like a moving black cloud, flew to their roost in the woods behind the Akron Zoo.
There were hundreds of them.
“It was deafening,” says Debra Swank, an education specialist at the zoo who has a bachelor’s degree in zoology from Ohio State University.
Though the 33-year-old was more fascinated than frightened (she works with crows for a living), a scene like this would cause most of us to run screaming for cover. (Does Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” mean anything to you?)
Associating crows with “creepy” has been kind of ingrained in us. All sorts of myths and superstitions surround this enigmatic creature, most often depicted as representing bad luck, revenge or death. (It has been said that if you see a crow caw, death is near, and that a group of crows will fly around in a circle right above an area where an animal or a person is about to die.) Adding to the creepy, crows have long been associated with battlefields, execution sites and cemeteries — where they’d be seen scavenging on human carcasses.
According to Greek mythology, Apollo owned a snow-white crow that he charged with watching over his wife, Coronis. When the crow discovered that Apollo’s wife had fallen in love with another man and told Apollo the news, Apollo turned the crow’s feathers black in an act of rage. Ever since, so the story goes, crows have been creatures of the night, representing the spirit of revenge and bringing back those who’ve been wronged, much like the story of Brandon Lee’s character in “The Crow.”
“One of the reasons why [crow superstitions are] so common in pop culture is because crows are kind of mystical in some way,” says Swank. “People sort of associate a magical quality to them.”
Magical or not, they are intelligent. They’re one of the smartest animals on the planet and, according to Swank, can learn to mimic the human voice, just like parrots. (And she should know; she worked with a crow several years ago that couldn’t keep its mouth shut during her animal show. He would say things like, “Hello” and “My name is Pete,” even when he wasn’t supposed to be talking!)
Less amusing and more terrifying, crows can recognize you. Swank remembers a research study in Seattle where a group of scientists captured seven crows while wearing something similar to the Michael Myers mask from “Halloween.” Once the crows were tagged and released, the men went back out a week later, wearing the same masks. Not only did they attract the initial seven crows, but the scientists learned that crows can actually hold a grudge because, within minutes, a flock of angry crows were dive-bombing them. The initial seven crows had communicated with their flock that these men were a threat.
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