There is no reason to associate crows with March, but for some reason I do. There is something in their caws that speaks of the mottled blue skies of this month, of the air that is still cold but smells of just turned earth.

Heard in a chorus, crows sound busily out of sorts, the avian equivalent of a coffee klatch. But heard in single caws, the bird sounds plaintive, his song a bleak and windswept tune.

Which is why, when I hear a crow on a cloudy March morning, I think of Thomas Hardy:

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.