“Claire knows our household spiders freakishly well. She names them all: currently we have Abigail behind the front door, Puddles in the bathroom, and a wandering Fiona. Claire monitors their webs, diagrams their whereabouts, and worries over their diets. She wonders whether it is ethical to toss an insect Abigail’s way if it seems none are finding their way to her web themselves. She puts up notes to reroute guests if their ramblings might disturb one of our arachnid roommates. She knows our household spiders every bit as well as I know the neighborhood crows, and I’m impressed with her studies.”

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“One well-documented use of tools on a grand scale by crows around the world is the dropping of nuts on the road to be shelled by passing cars. The crows will swoop in, drop their nuts, and wait on a wire for a vehicle to pass. They will then swoop down again to see whether their nuts have been crushed open.”

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“Everybody has a crow story.”

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“In spite of the string of magazine covers announcing the contrary, we all know that ten simple things will not save the earth. There are, rather, three thousand impossible things that all of us must do, and changing our light bulbs, while necessary, is the barest beginning. We are being called upon to act against a prevailing culture, to undermine our own entrenched tendency to accumulate and to consume, and to refuse to define out individuality by our presumed ability to do whatever we want.”

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