I was dreaming about something when a lot of noise woke me up. It was about 7 a.m. The window to my left was partially open. My fuzzy consciousness felt the pull of a post-sleep doze. But it was kept alert by the racket outside. It was crows, and they were growing in number.
I rapped at the window, but that had no effect. I finally got out of bed and went downstairs with the plan of scaring them away with a very loud “What the fucking hell!”
But when I opened the door, I found that my kitten was cornered by a tailless raccoon.
I surprised this raccoon, and in that moment of surprise, my kitten escaped into the house.
When I told this story to Lyanda Lynn Haupt, the author of the excellent Crow Planet, the book that inspired this piece I just wrote about crows, cemeteries, and Bruce and Brandon Lee, Haupt said: “Those crows saved your kitten’s life.”
But why did they do that, I asked? Why did they help my little kitten, which I have never named (I’m opposed to naming pets).
“I don’t think it had anything to with helping your kitten. Crows just hate raccoons. They climb up trees, reach their nests, grab their babies out of the nest, and eat them. Sometimes, the parents have to watch this and can do nothing about it. That’s not all. A parent might be sitting in a nest when all of a sudden a raccoon grabs it and eats it.”
“Raccoons can eat a whole crow?”
“Yes,” Haupt said, “that’s why they were making so much noise outside of your house. That animal causes them a lot of suffering.”
Can you imagine something uglier or more disgusting than a raccoon eating a crow? I’m happy that my pretty little kitty lived to become a healthy and happy mice-catching and bird-killing cat.
