Crows and Sunflowers

Sunflowers are a common crop here in the northwestern part of Hungary. Experienced farmers protect their fields against birds in some manner or other. If nothing else, they utilize good old-fashioned scarecrows to keep opportunistic birds at bay, but sometimes even the best deterrence efforts fail. 

I had to drive into town today, and as I left the roundabout and traveled toward Sopron, I happened to pass a massive flock of crows plundering an expansive field of sunflowers.

​On the surface there was nothing exceptional about this scene, but the sight of over a hundred of the black corvids swooping in on the field, perching atop the withering sunflowers, and pecking away at the seeds within made quite an impression on me.

I wanted to stop to take a photo, but I didn't have the time to turn around and go back. Thus, the best I can do here is offer two similar images I managed to find on the internet. 

On the one hand, crows in sunflower fields are a somewhat common sight in this part of the world. On the other hand, there was something peculiarly uncommon about my seeing the crows in a sunflower field today.

Crows are corvids and both have been a subject of symbolism and discussion within my blogging circle, so this probably has something to do the impression factor of seeing a flock of crows ravage a sunflower field.

​I'm not the most adept when it comes to symbol interpretation, but the scene certainly felt symbolic. 

Though I found the scene striking, I did not perceive anything particularly negative about it, so I would not say the crows in the sunflower field were necessarily an omen. On the contrary, they could symbolize the approach of something positive.

Time will tell . . .