A convocation of crows in my neighbourhood, (and when Bishops get together).
O.K.
(1) So I know that the collective noun for Crows is a "murder", not a "convocation".
(2) And I know the difference between Crows and Jackdaws.
Nevertheless we had what I choose to call a "Convocation of Crows" this morning, on and around a leafless tree in my neighbourhood. The noise was all but deafening.
Their gathering reminded me of some words by a Fourth Century (A.D.)Christian Bishop, one Gregory of Nazianzus. (Nazianzus was a small town in what is modern-day Turkey). He, (referring to a gathering of Bishops in Constantinople) speaks of Jackdaws - but they might as well have been Crows.
A meeting of Bishops described
"they squawked in very direction. a flock of jackdaws combining together, a rabble of adolescents, a gang of youth, a whirlwind raising dust under the pressure of air currents,
people whom nobody who was mature enough either in the fear of God or in years would pay any attention,
they splutter confused stuff or like wasps rush directly at what is in front of their heads".
people whom nobody who was mature enough either in the fear of God or in years would pay any attention,
they splutter confused stuff or like wasps rush directly at what is in front of their heads".
Gregory of Nazianzus ( A.D. 329 - 390 )
as quoted in Charles Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind" (Knopf 2003)
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And here (gratuitously) is a video of a "Murmur (Convocation?) of Crows, not my video, but taken from the net.
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