March 2020

     The crows came with Covid. Sometime during the unending damp, gray days of the lockdown in March, they arrived. First, just a few found their way to the barren branches that surrounded our house. I gave them no notice; I was in pandemic mode, focused on scouring the internet for much needed supplies. (Yeast! For the bread baking I was finally going to master.) Tony was excited. “Look at that,” he marveled. “We have crows! It’s been ages.” He told me it had been at least fifteen years since crows had roosted in Evanston, where we live as empty nesters. Ironically, it was a virus that decimated the crow population here in Illinois, the West Nile Virus. Tony said the crows used to visit our yard every year. “This is a good thing that they’re back,” he declared.

     I was less enthusiastic. I never warmed up to crows after seeing the Hitchcock movie The Birds. All those flapping wings and their distinctive caw caw caw as they attacked school children and people on the streets…the images stuck with me. Soon, more crows appeared in our yard, sometimes twenty or more clung to the branches outside our back porch, peering in as we ate. They perched in the trees, on the bushes, and on the sad patio furniture wrapped in plastic. They settled in, and stayed for the day.

     Tony said they are a most intelligent bird, can be taught many skills, and have even been known to fashion and use tools with their sharp claws. He said they have important jobs like eating all the grubs and caterpillars that farmers find a nuisance. They are good citizens, transporting and storing seeds, helping in forest renewal. Some American Indian tribes believe the crow to be a sign of good fortune. They believe that seeing a crow means something new is about to happen, that we should place our trust in its intelligence.

     But I could not embrace such thinking. I couldn’t fathom any good fortune their appearance might portend. We were in the beginning stages of a pandemic, after all. 

     Trying to share Tony’s excitement, I looked for something to appreciate. The gleaming blue in their jet black wings, perhaps. But that was as far as I got. They hung in the dreary landscape day in and day out, lurking, menacing, like the virus itself. In some cultures, crows are viewed as bad omens, a symbol of danger to be avoided. To me, this seemed right. They are of the Corvidae family, Corvid for short. Take away the R in Corvid and what do you have? Exactly. And I couldn’t help but wonder why a flock of crows would be called a murder. Why did a murder of crows land in our yard, this year of all years? Couldn’t we be visited upon by a charm of finches or a party of jays instead?

     I did my best to ignore them but it was impossible. As the lockdown continued, they roosted in our yard, front and back. When I left in the morning to walk the dog, I was greeted by their piercing eyes, their large, flapping wings, their caw caw caw. When I returned, I wished they would be gone, but they never were. I often felt like Tippi Hedren from the movie, rushing to get in the door, slamming it shut. Safe. But not.

     April

    April arrived unheralded, a continuance of March: cold, blustery, bleak. The virus raged in New York, Italy, Spain. We hunkered down in Illinois. Nowhere felt safe. Not even home. Each day I cleaned every surface we came in contact with, whether we had been out or not. We didn’t know how long the virus could live, or where it could live. I wondered if it spread over surfaces like an invisible veil, could it creep from doorknob to wall? We did not know, and so, I wiped, and scrubbed, and sprayed, and repeated, day after day. On grocery shopping days, we set forth at the crack of dawn for “senior hours”, donned in masks, gloves, glasses and hats, then cleaned every purchase, every plastic wrapper, every piece of everything, before putting it all away. Packages delivered to our door sat outside for days before we allowed them in, fearing they might carry death. In between the cleaning, we did what everyone else we knew was doing, we cooked, walked the dog, Zoomed and FaceTimed our lives: work, exercise classes, friends and family. We read books, made and donated masks, and watched too many movies. Cleaned closets and the basement. All under the gaze of the ever present crows.

     I plodded with the dog through somber spring snow bundled in scarf, hat and boots, the streets silent and empty. We trudged through endless fog, wind, and icy rain, in search of some well-being. I hardly ever saw another person. I wished we had not watched that grim Chernobyl series those weeks before the pandemic started. It was riveting at the time, too close for comfort now.

     May

     Finally, an ever so slight shift took hold. Buds dotted the tree branches and the first spring shoots burst through the earth. The ice was replaced with dew, and everything, every blade of grass, every tiny chipmunk, even every worm seemed shiny and new. As for the crows, there seemed to be fewer, they appeared to recede as the landscape blossomed. Maybe they were hidden by the growing foliage, maybe they had found another roost, maybe I had forgotten them, my mind focused on the change of season.

     We ventured outdoors, filled with wonder, as if we had just been awakened from a long winter’s nap. “Hi there!” neighbors greeted each other warmly from across the street. “So good to see you!” And it was; it was so good to see every neighbor, still healthy, still there. We had made it, so far.

     One morning, as Tony was picking up our newspapers from the front sidewalk, a neighbor on a bike ride stopped and said, “That’s quite a nest you’ve got up there,” pointing to the very tall river birch tree in our front yard. “I think it’s a Cooper’s hawk’s nest.” Tony excitedly came in to share this news with me, grabbing my hand, scurrying me out the door. “Look, look, do you see what’s up there?” he exclaimed, pointing into the treetops. 

     I squinted as I gazed up, not knowing exactly what it was I was looking for. “There, there, do you see it? Look waaaaay up there…” It was amazing how well hidden the nest was, considering its large size and the fact that the tree was still quite bare, just beginning to sprout its leaves. If someone had not pointed it out to us, I’m not sure we ever would have seen it. But then, we weren’t used to looking upwards. Before the pandemic, we spent so much, too much, of our time hurrying, rushing to the garage and down the driveway, looking straight ahead, off to work, meetings, exercise, errands, appointments, friends, family, airplanes and trips. We did not gaze up at the sky above the branches; we did not contemplate what might actually be in those branches.

     “Ohhhh… yes, yes, I do see it,” I said. It was a U-shaped sort of structure that hung down from a thick branch, made of all sorts of sticks and who knows what else. It blended right in with the tree. When I looked away I had a difficult time finding it again. My eyes were more accustomed to searching screens, not branches.

     The nest became a daily fixation. “Did you see the nest today?” “How’s the nest?” We often stood out there, gazing up, wondering if, in fact, a bird lived there. It took a while to catch a glimpse of it, but when we did, it was worthy of a celebration.

          Tony was the first to see the Cooper’s hawk. He saw it fly from the nest into another nearby tree. He reported it was magnificent. After that, the hawk was spotted every few days, flying back and forth to the nest. It seemed quite busy. Tony said he was sure it was a male bringing food to a nesting female. This is how the Cooper’s hawk operates; the male helps the female get ready for the chicks by bringing food and materials to fortify the nest. We named him Cooper (for a male, but thought it would fit either way), and began a ritual of looking for him daily.

     For a few weeks, we only saw Cooper. He was stunning, white chested, with tan wings striped in gray or black with some white interspersed. He was large and graceful, yet powerful as he soared beyond the trees, out into the neighborhood. We had never seen a hawk in our area before, but learned they often nest in urban settings, particularly in the Midwest. We were thrilled this special bird had selected our tree to build his home.

    I worried about the crows. They seemed to have vacated our yard, but I was wary. Were they nearby, watching and waiting? Would they return if they knew about the hawk? Crows are known to mob — would they attack him, harm him? We knew the Cooper’s hawk is a fierce predator, capable of instantly killing other birds, squirrels, rabbits, and whatever else it might fancy. The hawk would most likely harm the crows, yet we felt protective towards “our” hawk. In our virus-centered world, he was a welcome diversion.

     We took to having coffee in the yard, close to Cooper’s nest. Prior to the pandemic, we never sat in our front yard, preferring the privacy of the back patio. Actually, we never had coffee in the morning outside in the month of May. It was still chilly, and besides, we had places to go. Now we sat in the clothes we lived in, fleece and sweats, on the two ancient Adirondack chairs that we hardly ever sat in before, and waved hello to passersby, sipping coffee and keeping our eyes glued to the trees to catch a glimpse of Cooper. Some mornings he graced us with his presence, flitting from tree to tree, other days, we were left wondering as to his whereabouts.

      It wasn’t long until we saw the second hawk. There were indeed two Cooper’s hawks in the nest. We assumed they were male and female, preparing the nest for chicks, based on all the activity we saw. We named the second one Casey.

    June

    June brought warmer, longer days. We spent as much time outside as we could, basking in all that vitamin D pouring down from the sky. No virus on the lawn. We did our best to enjoy it. The yard was alive in a way we had never noticed before. Was it always like this? Did we have this variety of butterflies before, bouncing amongst the flowers? Did we always have so many vibrant cardinals? We sat in wonder. Had we been missing all this, all these years, or was it specific to this year, to these times? 

     With the expanding daylight, we took to imbibing in cocktail hour on the lawn, in addition to coffee in the morning. Just to check in on the hawks, of course. They were often active in the late afternoon, flexing their wings, flying from tree to tree around the yard, then back to the nest. Sometimes, Cooper took flight over us like a fighter jet, up and out, probably in search of food. Once we saw him chase a squirrel, literally clawing his way step-by-step down a tree trunk, a wild spiraling dance ensued, which did not result in a meal (that time). We were sure there were eggs in the nest, if not chicks already.     

     In early June we thought we caught a glimpse of small, gray wing tips peeking out from the nest. Binoculars confirmed there were most likely three chicks. We felt like sending birth announcements to friends and family. We anxiously awaited their maiden voyage.

    “There’s one!” we exclaimed to each other, ensconced on the Adirondacks, again. The fledglings were not small; they were good sized as compared to the other birds in our yard. But they moved quickly, and it was easy to miss them. They were grayish when we first started seeing them, with the same white chests as their parents. We wondered how long we would have the family with us.

     As the fledglings began to stretch their wings, we did too. We had done our duty; we had given three months of our lives to the lockdown. All around us, life was struggling to find a path back. Little by little, state by state, city by city, doors were opening. We ventured out a bit more, guarded, yes, but happy to be participating in the outer world in some small way. We were fledglings, too, it seemed.

     July

     One afternoon while taking a Zoom yoga class, I noticed three crows on the tree just outside the window. I had erased the crows from my mind at that point. Their appearance made me gasp. I had thought they were gone from our yard. Why had they appeared now? Why hadn’t they appeared on that tree some other time? Why had they appeared at all? I was sure they had come to signal something serious.

     A few hours later, as we sat down to dinner, Tony quietly said, “I have to show you something. I’m afraid you’re not going to like it. Come with me.” As we walked out the back door, I wondered, was it something related to our dog or cat? I always worried our old indoor kitty would get out, was that it? But no. Just outside the door lay a Cooper’s hawk, face down on the concrete patio, perfectly still. Completely unruffled. We thought it was one of the fledglings, practically fully grown. I quickly backed away, unable to look at it. “Is it dead?” I asked. Tony nodded. I ran inside. I felt a chill remembering the three crows I saw in the branches earlier. We ate our dinner in silence.

     Afterward, Tony carefully lifted the hawk with a shovel and put it in a plastic bag, then carried it over to the animal cemetery we have in our yard, which holds several family pets from over the years. The next morning, he buried it. I couldn’t bring myself to join him. I was seething about the crows, convinced that they had mobbed our precious hawk. Yet Tony wasn’t so sure. He thought maybe the hawk had flown into a second story window and fallen to the ground.

    A few weeks later, we took a ten-hour road trip to retreat to a secluded cabin in northern Minnesota. We fished, hiked, and searched the wide-open skies for soaring eagles and shooting stars. We forgot about the virus, the news, and our sickly aging cat.

     Upon our return, the hawk’s nest seemed quiet, maybe even empty. After a few days we came to the sad conclusion that the hawks had vacated, as is their way. They had moved on. Although we had just escaped ourselves, we wished we could move on, too.

                                                                             *

          August has come and gone. We sit on the lawn, bundled in blankets, longing for something, anything, to take our minds off the pandemic. We will sit here until such time comes that we can’t. Until the cold and wind push us back inside. Every so often, a lone crow or two lands in the yard. I hardly notice, I guess I’ve learned to live with them, just as we’ve learned to live with the pandemic. Maybe that was the wisdom the crows brought to us. The Cooper’s hawk nest sits empty, high in the branches of the birch tree. I think back to the month of March, and all we did not know. I think about all we still do not know. I keep gazing upwards, through the branches, to the sky. Waiting and wondering.

                                          

©

Cathy Beres considers herself a late bloomer. After a 30+ year career in advertising and marketing, she received an MA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Publications include: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, (“A Force Outside Myself, Citizens Over Sixty Speak”), Ruminate (Finalist, Nonfiction, 2017), Fish Anthology (Finalist, Short Memoir,2015), The Examined Life Journal (University of Iowa Carver School of Medicine), New City Chicago, Yoga International, and others. She resides in Evanston, Illinois with her partner, Tony, and first ever pup, Zeus. 

Ann Willey has been creating art all her life, and has worked as a graphic artist and illustrator. She likes to explore the quiet moments in life that are rich with meanings and possibilities. She has always been drawn to folk art and magical realism, and her images have a narrative quality, as if the scene is captured from a story or a dream.
Website: annwilley.com
Shop: annwilley.etsy.com