They are supposedly the most intelligent of all birds. They have been revered for centuries.

They are synonymous with death, bad luck, doom and the afterlife. In Ames, however, they are best known as the notorious destroyers of car windshields, sidewalks and the pride you had in that now-not-so-new sweater.

I’m talking, of course, about crows.

My roommate saw them first outside our apartment window. A few black shapes flying past the window, then a few more trailed past our view.

Soon there were hundreds and — no exaggeration — perhaps thousands of them streaming across the late afternoon sky.

I’ve never seen anything like it. They occupied an uninterrupted river of flapping black shapes across the sky for nearly 20 minutes, and I couldn’t begin to count how many there were.

They flew with the uncanny nonchalance of a group confident in their ability to take over the entire town. Pulled together, I’m sure they could have eclipsed the sun.

These aren’t cute blue jays or robins; these are crows, hundreds of them.

Hitchcockian doesn’t even begin to describe it. Seeing so many black crows streaming across a darkening sky, I couldn’t help but think the apocalypse must be just around the corner.

Heaven help you if you’re ever caught on that shaded walkway by the old dorms to the Memorial Union ramp. I was walking there late at night with some friends once, when we noticed that every branch above our heads was armed with a waiting crow.

We started to run when we thought we heard “rain.” Alas, this was not the kind of rain you wish to be caught under.

Personally, I’ve always actually liked crows. I’ve always thought they were very sleek, very “vogue looking,” all black like that.

But then again, back in Naperville you’ll only see a murder of five or six crows at any one time, not hundreds.

The crows have boomed in Ames because crows are resilient little birds.

They can live up to 10 years and are known for their tight social groups.

And, of course, everyone knows about their diets. Crows will eat bugs, worms, roadkill, mice, berries, corn and most important, trash. Just like squirrels and rabbits, crows are naturally suited to live among humans.

We, in fact, do all of the dirty work for them. We destroy the habitats of their natural predators, kill off their vegetarian competitors and then provide heaps of garbage for food.

If we have anyone to blame for the explosion of the crows, we can only blame ourselves.

We produce all the trash they feed on during the winter.

We can’t do much about them, either.

We can’t very well go to class with a 12-gauge shotgun under our arm, heads facing skyward as we search for one to bag.

It is in fact legal to hunt them during their season outside the city limits of Ames, but c’mon, there aren’t enough crows to even hunt outside of Ames.

It’s almost as if they know we can’t kill them in the city limits.

They’re taunting us, relishing the fact they can cloud the sky and give us a second coat of paint on our cars while we stand there helpless.

Since we can’t curb their numbers, perhaps we should just embrace our feathered friends.

It’s just like us; we bemoan the destruction of the environment, but when one species thrives in our midst, we can’t help but complain about them, even though we are the cause of their presence.

We should look upon the crows less as a nuisance and more as a feature of our beloved campus.

We have the Campanile, and now we have more crows than nature ever intended to exist in one area.

We could have tours that begin on a sunny day that start like, “Welcome to Ames, here’s your umbrella.”

Beyond that, maybe we should start looking into constructive ways to use all that crow power.

I think one of our GSB presidential candidates should put forth a program that enlists the power of crows in stemming the Asian beetle population during the summer.

That’s a program I would vote for.