Crow quills
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Crows must have favorite trees to sit in when they pick out feathers that are molting. I found seven big crow quills yesterday on my way to work, four in about the same place, and five more today, mostly in the same place as yesterday. It's under a tall tree across the street from the Cabot playground, and I'm amazed that the feathers weren't picked up by kids walking to or from school.
This raises all sorts of questions about crow behavior and psychology. If you're losing one of your main flight feathers, do you feel particularly nervous and vulnerable? Do you sit up in the top of a tree with a good view all around and look carefully for hawks before you pick at an itchy feather? How would a crow describe its motivation -- I just feel like doing this, we've always done that in my family, it's not good manners to pick at feathers down in the bottom of trees?
To me the question is, should I make a headdress, or get into quill pens, or just leave the feathers in a vase for decoration?
I went over to the Armenian Library and Museum in Watertown Square on my lunch hour yesterday. Those of you who have read Infinite Jest, this is the place where Poor Tony hid out in the men's room. It's just a block from the end of the river walk. It's a three or four story new building with glass and polished metal, but you know from the unfamiliar alphabet that something is up. There's a big display window you can see from the outside with representative items from their collection -- a mannequin in festival costume, a bible and accompanying sign about the significance of the Gospel Book, and more. This was only the second time I've been there, because they have strange hours -- 1 to 5 PM three days a week, so you have to know they're open before you try to go. They've been trying to get people in the Armenian community to donate items their grandparents brought over that have been collecting dust in attics, and are strong on textiles. It's a very small museum, but has enthusiastic staff and one beautiful room that's a reconstruction of a silk merchant's store in the old country (which was, after all, on the ancient silk road). Standing in front of it looking at the mannequins measuring cloth for each other, seeing the old weights and measures and the engraving on the wall, is like a trip a third of the way around the world and ninety years back in time. I came home with a copy of Armenian International Magazine.
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