A crow’s nest
As Warsaw comes to life this spring, as the sun kisses the cool earth and the color green fades back in over the gray city, within this flowering green rests a gray, quiet crow named Zuzia. She’s taken a nest directly outside of my grandmother’s window, and except for the occasional, brief trip away from it she just sits there, never sleeping, always protecting, watching the world around her and watching Babcia too. It was Babcia — Grandma — who gave Zuzia her name.
Why Zuzia?
“I don’t know. She just looks to me like a Zuzia,” Babcia decided, and that was that.
Babcia first spotted her just before Easter, in this time of year which happens to be my grandmother’s favorite: when after the long winter wait the branches outside her window begin to bud, to sprout out, and so soon the neighbors in the other windows across the way will be gone — their laundry lines gone, those men in their morning underwear gone. All of it gone, soon to be washed away by the green, a brilliant green that will shimmer and dance, will whisper the wind’s summer stories and welcome the rain’s gentle tap. Yes all winter my grandmother dreams of these very days when she gets to watch the great trick of the green unfold, and in this, her 91st spring, Babcia looked out into that green and found Zuzia there also, in a ring of twisted twigs, looking back.
Zuzia’s nest rests atop a wounded tree. Two years ago, a rogue wind storm damaged the tree badly, and I remember Babcia’s heartbreak at seeing the entire crown having to be sawed away. Yet this year the surviving trunk has been the first to turn green, with ivy forming all around it and reaching up then for the sky. Still void of a crown, this ivy tree appears now as some kind of fairy tale tornado out there amid the others in the courtyard, and at the very top of the fairy tale, Zuzia.
When Babcia first spotted her, she phoned me straight away with an excited voice, yet held back the full story. “There’s something here you need to see,” she said, “But I won’t tell you, you’ll see it when you come over.” She held on to the surprise because she knows how fond I am of crows. Knows I’ve read about them and even written about them in a book about Warsaw I’m trying to publish. In that text, I arrive from America and soon find myself drawn to the crows all over the city and outside of my own window of my own rented flat, during yet another Warsaw spring. And I write:
This morning, the second of spring, I go to the window with the usual coffee and see them everywhere. There are two in the rectangle of grass over where the dogs usually play or relieve themselves, three in the triangle of dirt behind Gorski’s statue, two more on the slanted rooftop opposite Konwicki’s balcony, and the lonely one up in his usual tree over Tuwima.
The crows are at work. They’re picking at things, inspecting, pulling. Even the lonely crow’s solemn respite is soon interrupted when a couple of others arrive at the same tree, and begin to yank at those branches, causing a collective bounce. It’s nesting season. So those talons and beaks are at work, holding on tight, and thrashing, attempting to wrench away some of the weaker branches. The lonely crow quickly has enough of this; he leaps away and flies off. And then finally, a twig up there snaps, and is held up by the crow that had been thrashing at it. Now, contemplation: is the twig good enough? Keep it? Or drop it as another reject and start anew? The sidewalks are now littered with these rejected twigs, especially beneath the foraged crowns. In this case, the crow has decided to hold on to what he has, and sails away with the twig held horizontally.
What will happen next: that crow will arrive somewhere else, probably up in another tree but sometimes in the crook of an old building, and he’ll add the twig to the others. He’ll also chisel and bend them down as needed. And once a full ring of twigs is in place he’ll go back out in search of softer material — grass, flowers, paper, fur. Those items will be added to the interior, for comfort.
Once a nest is complete — built specifically to fit the shape of his mate’s body — his partner will settle in. That is, if she accepts it. Female crows hold the right of refusal, and whenever a female rejects a nest the male must start completely over on another. Once she is finally satisfied, and gets settled, he then becomes responsible for finding food and bringing it back to her. The more ambitious of male crows, if there’s time, will even build a second nest somewhere else, as a decoy for predators.
I’m fascinated with crows. It began when I arrived in Warsaw and spotted them everywhere, certainly more of them here than in any other city I’ve ever lived in or visited. My admiration grew when I noticed how they stuck around in winter, didn’t fly south, and I’d see them out and about on those harshest of days, poking and picking around while their black and gray winter coats made for dramatic contrasts against the snow. In some ways these crows remind me of the citizens of Warsaw, walking about also in their black or gray winter coats, their faces also steely against the cold, their eyes alternatively watchful, contemplative, a bit judgmental; though on the whole, crows make far more eye contact.
So I’ve begun reading about them. And I’ve learned that these crows are indeed watching. That they’re staring as intently or even more so at us and at the world we share, because they, too, are storytellers. Crows recognize and remember the faces of individuals, they form impressions, and they tell their families. For instance: if you, reader, were to go out there now and toss a crow a sliver of bread, that crow will remember you fondly for the rest of his life, be able to pick you out from a crowd, and will forever watch intently to see if you’ll be charitable again. On the other hand if you were to chase or scare that crow away, then that crow will share that story with family and friends, call out to them with a specific warning caw if he sees you coming. Crows have different calls for different dangers: a specific tone for hawks, for cats, for humans. They also speak in two dialects: a louder one for the general population, and a quieter one for messages passed only within the family.
Family. For crows, for Poles, family is everything.
Once paired, two crows usually remain together for life. When a male crow first spots a potential mate he will land in front of her, puff his chest out a little, spread his wings and splay his feathers so as to show himself off a little. He will also bow to her, his head bobbing up and down repeatedly. Sometimes he sings her a song.
Ultimately, as with the nest, as with everything, it’s her decision. She can fly away or remain. If the female remains, accepting, then he must then provide for her always. Proper nest, decent food. Younger crows belonging to the same family will also stick around to help their parents for awhile, until it’s time for them to fly off to start families of their own.
As for the age-old pleasure of flesh and feather, the male crow does not have a penis but a cloacal opening that swells during nesting season. And once a nest is made and accepted only then can he mount and rub. Feathers tangle. It can be smooth or it can be awkward. Sometimes the birds make little noises. Other times their squeals can be heard from two hundred meters away. Copulation usually lasts no longer than fifteen seconds. Maybe longer if the male has had whisky. …
These crows are thinkers, toolmakers, carpenters; they fashion tools out of certain materials or branches, shaving them just so to aid in specific tasks, like retrieving something from a gutter.
Scavengers too, they know exactly the difference between the purse you’re holding in one hand and the McDonald’s bag in the other. And they memorize the routes and schedules of garbage trucks, swooping in for those scraps as well. …
The average life span of a mature crow is believed to be six to nine years, though on occasion they can live to twenty.
A crippled crow is usually looked after by others.
Rarely, and for reasons unknown, one crow murders another.
And when a crow lays dead, whatever the cause, a ritual then commences: crows from differing families will gather en masse around it or up above it on the branches of trees. Often there will be hundreds perched there, but they remain in total silence; the only sound — wind rustling through the leaves. Until, once it’s time, and all at once, the entire flock will fly away.
In that quiet courtyard behind Aleja 3 Maja, Zuzia waits, mostly alone. She seems to have no extended family helpers as far as we can tell, and her partner Bartek — this name, I came up with — seems to show up only occasionally; we suspect him to have either a job or a girlfriend in Łodz. Babcia scolds Bartek for his constant absence. When he does appear, though, it’s an event: Babcia goes Uh-hoh! and so, too, does Zuzia, ready to accept whatever food he’s brought her. Together then Zuzia and Bartek sometimes sit perched at the edge of the nest and peering down into it, presumably checking in on the eggs. We don’t know how many eggs there are, as we’re not at the right angle to see down into the nest ourselves. My grandmother attempted to remedy this one day by carrying in a ladder from the other room, and climbing it to get a better view.
“Babcia, uważaj!” — Babcia, be careful! — I said when I first found the ladder there in front of the window and was told of its purpose. May I remind that she is 91.
“I’m careful, I’m careful, come on,” Babcia then scoffed. Mostly she’s just annoyed that she still can’t see the eggs herself, and wishes she had a taller ladder.
And so, we wait also. Bartek flies off to Łodz or wherever else and it’s us again, us and Zuzia. From her we never hear a peep, a single caw. We see only her tilted head and the flashing white of her blinking eye. Whereas in the beginning she seemed to be more often turned in the other direction, here lately she’s been facing us, facing Babcia’s window and so perhaps we, too, are providing her with amusement, with a story to tell Bartek or the little ones once they finally hatch — the story of the old woman there inside of her own little nest, and climbing a ladder there sometimes, and looking.
