Whenever we see a crow picking at a carcass on the side of the road, my wife Paula says, “Look, Sean! One of your friends!”

Crows (and the other members of genus Corvus) hold a special place with me, all right. I'm also fond of their relatives, the jays, but there's just something about a raven or a common crow that connects with me.

This has been especially true since I read Bernd Heinrich's book,Mind of the Raven. But I've always appreciated the big black birds that hang around Baltimore in such large numbers, long before somebody decided to name the pro football team after Edgar Allen Poe's particular corvid acquaintance.