Rama Adhikari
Who cares to think about the crows? They have been voted as one of the ugliest birds on earth. Do not talk about their voice. People say it is simply unbearable. No one cherishes their voice – the harsh cry without any charm. But think of a world where crows are not there. Will that make any difference? In fact, it will.
Many crows are culturally important. Communities in Nepal believe that coming of the crows brings some kind of a news. When crows hover around their houses, they think that something has happened to their relatives far away and the news will come very soon. On the first day of the Tihar festival, people in Nepal worship the crows, and give them delicious food and grains. This is done to show their gratefulness to the crows that clean up their environment by eating up the dead things.
The crows are found almost in every part of the world. But they are more in the northern hemisphere of the earth. They are not all black, though a majority of them are. The ones we find in Nepal are usually black in color. We find gray crows in the far eastern frontier of Nepal and north-eastern part of India. Some crows have black-white spotted wings, while some smaller varieties have beautiful patterns of different colors.
There are about 113 species in the crow family. These include ravens, jays, rooks and jackdaws. Most species are black, but many jays are brightly colored.
Crows can live in a variety of places, and eat a variety of foods. Some species can be found in gardens and backyards. Their foods range from grains and corns to small insects, and even young birds. Their strong beaks allow them to eat a wide range of things. In spring sometimes they eat the eggs and nestlings of other birds.
There are many interesting things about the crows. Some crows, especially the jays collect seeds of oak, pine and other trees in summer or autumn, and bury them under the ground. When winter comes and the seeds in the jungle become rare, they eat these seeds from their stores.
Some crows like the magpies are robbers. They raid the nests of other smaller birds when they are not guarded, and eat up the eggs or the nestlings. Ravens fly high in the sky like hawks, and look for dead animals. If they see any, they settle down, and eat the flesh.
Some varieties of crows have the discrimination of senior and junior ones in their group. Crows like the jackdaw maintain this system. The senior ones exercise their power over the junior ones in thing related to food.
Some clever crows like carrion crow live near the road sides. When they see that the vehicles have run over some large or small animals, they rush and start munching the fresh meat of the animals.
The sad thing about these birds is that their number is decreasing day by day. Even in Nepal, their number is dwindling. Ornithologists believe that because of the environment pollution and climate change, many crows are either dying out, or migrating to other areas. This loss in the number of crows is a serious thing to our ecology. The change in their number can affect the life of other plants and animals whose lives are interdependent. This will ultimately affect the living of human beings also.
Every animal or plant somehow contributes to our living. We need to check our activities so that their life is not threatened. If one after another, birds and animals start disappearing, human life will come to a halt one day, early or late.