I was thinking of someone special at the time.
Cecil & Brian, were telling stories of the curious goings-on in their area of Maine. They had some power outages -- but not from the ice storm!
Last weekend, a flock of 300 or more crows descended on the Bucksport library, and surrounded the library in the trees. Dozens of people reported seeing them, and Monday morning, the entire railing, and walk way was covered in crow mess, so much that you couldn't walk or touch the railing, going down the walkway, without getting covered in it.
This alone would be cause for great concern, but nothing strange beyond the normal Bucksport everyday, heck we expect to be descended on by crows. It's a given. The other morning power was knocked out for 3 towns, Bucksport, Verona and Orland. Thousands of people were without power. The line guy, fixing the transformers, said the substation at the mill was hit with a huge flock of crows, and they actually blew it up there was so many, landing on the wires, and messing on everything. The substation is within feet of the Red Paint Cemetery, located at the Mill on Indian Point. Once the fire died down, they saw hundreds of dead and crispy crows littering the area.
What a mess! Were the crows drawn to the Red Paint site? We'll never know.
Crows are admired by many (including myself), but despised by many more as pests. Portland, Maine, is home to huge clouds of roosting crows, which people see in the bare trees in Deering Oaks come winter evenings. It's a remarkable sight.
In a Time Magazine article from Monday, Mar. 31, 1924, titled "Vermin," an account arose of a contest run by gunpowder makers E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Inc. The firm offered $2,500 in merchandise prizes "to the individual or club which, at the end of a three months' season, has killed the most crows or other birds or animals termed 'vermin' in the prospectus of their competition."
Maine's own governor is quoted in the article, as he reacted to a plan for wholesale slaughter of the ebon birds.
To his people of the State of Maine, Governor Percival Proctor Baxter made proclamation as follows: "It would seem that a great corporation like the one that controls the powder industry in America, with millions of assets, would find other ways of increasing its profits instead of by inciting the men and boys of this country to kill one of the farmers' friends, the crow."
"I am indignant that such a prize has been offered, and hope that the people of Maine will not participate in the contest."
Historic Maine Governor Percival Baxter, folks, champion of crows everywhere!
