Crows and Ravens

I was recently walking near a large power sub station out in the desert, and the wind was simply blasting away. It was so windy, my 50 pound dog was walking in a diagonal with his tail completely pointed to the side. I was having fun spreading my arms and letting my jacket catch the wind which would push me a good bit. Reminds me of those days on the beach when a hurricane was approaching. It would've been a great time to have a sail connected to a skateboard with caterpillar tracks so I could surf the desert!

When I got near the power station, I could hear this eerie high pitched whistling coming from one of those big electrical towers. I love hearing strange and odd sounds , so I just stood there for a bit and listened to the wind play the tower. That's when I heard the gurgle of a chicken like noise nearby.

It was a crow or raven flying overhead. He wasn't flapping his wings, just floating along and slowly riding the wind. He got lower as he neared Finley and I and made another cawrrrh cawrrrh sound. I said "Hey crow!" thinking of all the mystic associations assigned to such birds. He continued to float on past eventually going out of sight. It was a cool moment. I recalled seeing 2 crows about a month earlier flying in the same area. They both did these amazing dives that dropped them down seemingly almost to the ground with a quick movement back up say ten feet and then straight again only to float away after that. I'd never seen a bird fly in a such a rigid angled way before. My thought was that they were following a heat draft.

Today I was running out past the gun range on my way back. I was feeling a burst of energy and really trying to just pick up my pace which is much easier with the Cascadia 5s btw. Anyway, I'm running along and I hear the now familiar cawrrhhh cawwrrhhh. I stop and turn around. I see 2 crows and a hawk all floating/flapping off in the distance. Now they were prolly just saying, hey look, there's a human out there. Maybe they were laughing..who could know. I had stopped running and the wind in my ears and rocks crunching under my feet were gone. Then, slowly one crow flew right by me and in the dead silence of the desert, I could hear his wings going whooosh- whoosh- whoosh-whoosh. I could tell he was looking right at me. I smiled, put my hand up and said "Hey Crow!" I was hoping he would cawrrh back. He just kept flying slowly away though catching up with his companions.

Maybe these days, I'm more open to putting a spiritual spin on these experiences, but I found these two events to be very heart warming and refreshing. I don't think they are harbingers or omens of death, but perhaps rather God's way of letting me know he's watching me.