FTC in-btwn #16: Bad-Ass Crow: Flight Path To Defiance

What happens when a crow with serious attitude takes to the skies? A flight path you won’t believe! Sometimes, it’s in the smallest acts of defiance that we find our truest strength. 

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Last summer, we would walk through our St. Paul neighborhood, with its paved alleys lined with garages from an era when cars were snug little machines. Walking the alleys felt like stepping back in time, past backyards with towering trees—white pines, American elms, red maples, oaks, and spruce.

It was midday, the sun blazing in a bright blue sky, when a jarring CAW! CAW! ripped through the air, slicing through the quiet like a knife. 

I froze, my head whipping toward the sound. That’s when I saw it: a crow, black as ink, rocketing straight up from the crown of a 90-foot pine like a missile locked on its target. My eyes followed its trajectory—and there it was, soaring above: a Red-tailed hawk.

I blinked, then blinked again. A crow? Going after a hawk? The hawk’s wingspan alone was immense, stretching well over three feet, out-sizing the crow. 

Yet the crow showed no hesitation, no fear. The hawk let out a piercing, raspy screech and arced sharply to the right, circling back toward the crow. 

But the crow, relentless, changed course mid-air and charged. This wasn’t just a chase—it was an aerial dogfight. The hawk looped and twisted, pulling off a magnificent evasive maneuver that seemed to signal its escape. 

But it wasn’t over. The crow, like a fighter pilot in a World War 2 showdown, banked hard and came roaring back, hot on the hawk’s tail.  And in that moment, the hunter became the hunted—the hawk, sharp-taloned and formidable, was now the one fleeing.

Did this lone crow, a fraction of the hawk’s size, realize the odds were stacked against it? Was it protecting a nest, or was it sheer audacity fueling this battle in the sky?

It felt like watching the kind of argument where someone crosses a line, sparking an unyielding resolve to see it through, no matter the cost. 

The crow was that determined, that fierce. Its cries echoed through the alley, a defiant anthem, as it chased the hawk into the horizon.

It got me thinking, in challenging times, it is so easy to feel overwhelmed, and then I think about that bad-ass crow, like a meteor blazing across the sky, totally resolute! 

I want that crow-like clarity that says acts of defiance—rejecting boundaries, silencing the noise, and refusing to diminish—are how we discover who we are.