On the way back from our walk this afternoon, we spied a giant crow in a low branch near where we walked. It was massive, perhaps the size of a chicken. Its body was jet black from beak to claws, and every few seconds, it opened its jaws to deliver a few low, gutteral sounds. It did not shy away when we stopped to admire it, for crows are blessed with an intelligence that rivals many mammals.
Home now, and two hot cheese rolls are sitting in a paper sack on the kitchen table, waiting to be had with dinner in a couple hours. Meanwhile I need to write at least one paragraph, something.
You got it almost right…if it was that big and making gutteral sounds, it was probably a raven, which was also the creature mentioned in Poe’s poem.
It may have been, though I most commonly see crows around here, not ravens. The sounds were somewhat crow-like. Hard to say, since crows are known to have hundreds of unique sounds in their vocabulary. One good way to tell however, would be the shape and size of the bill, and I think this one had a fairly large one. So, could have been a raven. But it also had very sleek feathers on top of its head, not the slightly more puffy look of a raven’s head.
I think I have seen this fellow on our street before, maybe if I see him again I will look more closely.