Kids really do listen to everything we say, that’s absolutely true.

One time I looked up as a crow flew by and said, “Hello, cousin!”

Angel Girl asked me why I said that, and I told her that crows are very smart and that I feel they’re like family to me.

The next time we saw crows fly by, she pointed and said, “There goes one of your cousins, Grandma!”

Mom asked her why she said that, and Angel Girl told her all the crows in the whole world are Grandma’s cousins, which is a great thing to her because she loves her own cousins.

The best part of the story is that it makes perfect sense to her that animals are family. I like that a lot.

Besides a murder of crows, there are other collective nouns for crows: a horde, a hover, a mob, a parcel, a parliament, and a storytelling.

As for a storytelling of crows? This is a bit of an unknown but crows do tend to gather in large flocks and are known for their loud ‘caw’.  Perhaps someone observed this and decided that they weren’t so much plotting a murder but were telling stories to each other, https://www.birdspot.co.uk/

This photo from late yesterday afternoon must tell quite the story; I’ve never seen so many crows on the school field.

Seeing crows at sundown is a common occurrence around here, but not on this grand scale. Everyone driving by slowed down to gawk and neighbors came out to record it like I did.

On the roof, on the fence, on the fields — all my cousins!

Update: I sent the photo to my original Angel Boy and received a video text from his almost seven-year-old clone, AB 2.0 — “Hey Grandma, that’s a lot of cousins!”

My happiness grew exponentially.