I've mentioned my fondness for crows before.
These birds are proving less than popular among blonde women joggers in one Greenwich park. It seems an angry crow is predominantly targeting this one group of park users, dive bombing them as they jog round the paths.
Crows, including jays and magpies, have the ability to remember things, which allows them to discover how to create and use tools to get to food and suchlike. Their memories also allow them to make other links, such as blonde hair and jogging.
We all know that birds get territorial around the breeding season, but that doesn’t explain the behaviour of the Eltham crow. A better explanation is that a blonde woman out jogging, maybe after watching Hitchcock’s classic horror movie, The Birds, found a crow in her path and, fearing attack, threw water at it or kicked out her foot towards it. Now “traumatised” by this experience, this crow is now living proof of ‘what comes around, goes around’. Fearing a similar experience, it now favours pre-emptive strikes against any blonde jogger.. and occasional non-blonde jogger.. passing through its patch.
The tale may be comical to some, but not for those dived upon, who now in turn, could develop a hatred of all crows, and could similarly pick-on a whole species because of the actions of an individual bird, motivated by a careless gesture of a blonde jogger. I wonder if this is how author Camille Paglia came up with the story of The birds in the first place? [Update: nmahieu is quite right. It was Daphne du Naurier - Camille Paglia wrote a book about the film and that's what's on my bookshelf - misleading me with it's familiarity, thanks for pointing this out and please do keep the comments coming.]
As I’ve told the tale, it’s an example of how a small act can snowball. Which is exactly what we’re hoping will happen with our Letter to the Future campaign. I know, I know, it is a cheesy link. In my defence, it’s the Friday ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend; so what do you expect?
More than 213,000 people have signed and we need that figure to go higher to prove to the Government that there is strong public support for safeguarding our life support system.
On June 22, Chancellor George Osbourne will set out the coalition Government’s stall, showing their spending plans for the coming administration. Tackling the economic crisis is a must, but not at the expense of the environment. Short-term fixes will result in bigger bills later. We need intelligent and thought through spending to create a better future for people and wildlife.
Find out more about what the RSPB is doing to save wildlife and places at our Date with Nature on Hampstead Heath all this half-term week. There’s a good chance of seeing a kingfisher, and on Tuesday, an opportunity to see a common blogger, my good self.
Join us on the Heath to sign our Letter to the Future and pledge your support for an intelligent budget. If you’ve already signed, ask your MP to join you. We collectively elected them to represent us, so let them know what you want.
Not long ago I read an article in NewScientist which started "WILD crows can recognise individual human faces and hold a grudge for years against people who have treated them badly."
www.newscientist.com/.../dn18429-if-you-think-a-crow-is-giving-you-the-evil-eye.html
So maybe a blonde jogger should come and do something positive instead to try and reverse the connection or this may go on for years... Some monkey nuts might do the trick if our local crows are anything to go by :)
Daphne du Maurier came up with the idea for The Birds btw.
Nathalie