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This is the story of two grey crows named Chris and Kevin. I don’t know them personally, but recently my friend Jason, who lives in Co Meath, has been telling me about them in dispatches. At first I had to feign polite interest in the crow chat, but gradually I grew invested in their nightly visits to Jason’s home. At a time of environmental crisis, war, rising bills and interest rates, a time when news from our neighbouring country is all a bit grim, Chris and Kevin have provided a noisy distraction, sort of like Garth Brooks.
It all began back in July, when Chris and Kevin – so named by Jason’s children – started attacking the family home. In the early hours of the morning, usually at 4.30am, Jason and his wife would be woken first by beating wings, then by a clattering of claws and beaks against their large glass sliding door. Like clockwork, Chris and Kevin, apparently catching sight of their reflections in the window and mistaking themselves for two interloping crows, were going at the window in a territorial frenzy.
Jason began to wake automatically at 4.20am, ready for Chris and Kevin. Their caws sounded like mocking laughter now. The children began to wake early too, keen to witness the avian display
By night Jason and his wife took turns to get up to scare the crows away. By day they tried all sorts of techniques to get rid of Chris and Kevin. They hung plastic bags on the door. That didn’t work. They tried covering the sliding doors with a tarpaulin. But Chris and Kevin would just have a go at a different window or sneak behind the tarp. A bit optimistically, Jason had his children draw pictures of cats and stuck them on the window. No joy. He began to wake automatically at 4.20am, ready for Chris and Kevin. Their caws sounded like mocking laughter now. The children began to wake early too, keen to witness the avian display.
Jason asked everyone he met for advice. He discovered crow harassment was sweeping the countryside. Those who experienced them said the crows were smart, persistent and really annoying, which once again made me think of Garth Brooks.
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His golfing friends told him that crows had taken to swooping down to open the zips on golf bags, getting at their sandwiches. Jason read a story from the United States about crows swooping on people as they walked down the streets. He felt less alone hearing all of this but no less sleep deprived as Kevin and Chris continued their shenanigans.
He went on the internet. People online suggested he ask someone with a gun to shoot the crow’s nest. This seemed a bit extreme to Jason. A “bird of prey kite” was another suggestion, but he reckoned Chris and Kevin were far too intelligent to be fooled by that.
Manouvreing a disgruntled Chris into the trap’s holding cell was not straightforward. Jason confided it was one of the most nerve-racking things he’d ever done, and this is a man who has survived jumping out of an aeroplane with a faulty parachute
Then Jason met a woman who told him she would let him borrow her crow trap, which is designed to catch crows without injuring them. It had a central holding cell and the capacity to trap two crows at a time. The woman showed him how to bait and set it. Cat nuts were the best bait, she said. Jason could not believe how many new things Chris and Kevin were teaching him.
That night, to Jason’s amazement, Chris got caught in the trap while Kevin remained on watchful vigil from a nearby tree. What to do now that one of the crows had been caught? Jason had no clue. The consensus from local farming folk was that he should wring Chris’s neck, but Jason still felt guilty about shooting a rabbit when he was a small child, more than 30 years ago, so murdering his mini-murder of crows wasn’t a goer. Instead of neck wringing, he decided to move Chris to the holding cell and reset the trap to try to capture Kevin.
Manouvreing a disgruntled Chris into the holding cell was not straightforward. In one of his dispatches, Jason confided it was one of the most nerve-racking things he’d ever done, and this is a man who has survived jumping out of an aeroplane with a faulty parachute.
Trap baited and set again, that night Kevin joined Chris in the cage. But what to do now? The children were off to a summer camp 20 minutes away, so Jason took Chris and Kevin with them in the car and released them at a small graveyard. The next morning, as some of you will have already guessed, the tenacious crows were back in position, charging at their reflections on Jason’s sliding door.
Jason sees crows everywhere now. He wonders are they watching him, waiting for their moment to avenge Chris and Kevin
It took Jason a good while to catch them again, Chris and Kevin being wise now to the trap but ultimately unable to resist the lure of cat nuts. The early morning cawcophony now silenced, Jason asked around to see if anybody was willing to transport the crows farther afield and release them.
He was introduced to 84-year-old Winnie. The plan was she’d drive Chris and Kevin west to Galway. He thought she was going to let them go, but afterwards he heard that Winnie had wrung the necks of Chris and Kevin. There really is a whole other Ireland outside of Dublin, as people have been saying lately in relation to – yes, him again, sorry – Garth Brooks.
Jason sees crows everywhere now. He wonders are they watching him, waiting for their moment to avenge Chris and Kevin. On holidays in the Netherlands, he found a plastic, life-size crow in a shop and bought it for €3.50. It’s on the roof of his shed and has kept the other crows away, for now. But sometimes, at four o’clock in the morning, Jason wakes, thinking he can hear the raucous ballad of Chris and Kevin. Maybe he always will.