Abundance: Hooded Crow (Gilbert White)

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Gilbert White watched the skies
for signs
marking the seasons
passing. The first sighting
in February
or March
on the downs
of the hooded crow,
Corvus corone corvix,
flying over
toward the north,
meant spring
could no
longer be so
far away. All knowledge
local

and precise. Riding out
on the downs
February
16, 1770
from Fyfield, White
notes Grey crows are not seen
until we come
to about Andover
from the eastward. As you go
thence westward into
Wilts they abound.

And then again, as the year
turns -- the first snow
fall in Norway, sensed
at this distance
as a crispness
in the air
of the village -- the hooded
crow heading south
over the chalk scarp
toward the coast:
the seasonal clock
self-rewinding.

October 29 -- November
7, 1776. Grey
crows return -- these are winter
birds of passage, & are never seen
with us
in the summer.

The years
go past, in one
place, blending
together: a dense beech-
wood hop-picking black
malm-founded house-
martin-flocked
calendar. Timothy
the tortoise, with a page
or two of Horace
by candle light.

September 11, 1791.
Grey crow returns, & is seen near
Andover. Red even,
sweet moon.

The notation spilling
over the prim
ruled margins
of the ledger, bursting
beyond
the columnar
limit, flooding
the careful compartments
and containments
to capture
an unruly
abundance.

Italicized passages from Gilbert White: Journals, ed. Walter Johnson, 1931

Hooded crow (Corvus corone corvix) in flight: photo by Leviathan, 2009
Hooded crow (Corvus corone corvix): photo by M. Betley, 2004