Black Crow for Halloween Weekend

I found some appropriate pictures to post relevant to the holiday, Halloween.   I do not know much about crows, but I do know we have many of them in Shasta and Trinity counties.  They are loud, big, and quite black.  If you have ever seen the movie, The Birds, you know that a flock of  large black crows gathering near you isn't always a good omen.  Additionally, in scary movies, there often  is a large black crow to represent an an evil character when they are not in human form.  Why is that?  Apparently, according to Wikipedia, the black crows and ravens have been known to represent death, due to their black color, shriek calls, and also the fact that they eat carrion, which is dead meat. 

These large foreboding birds are quite loud and are around all year long.  Interestingly enough, they are very susceptible to the West Nile Virus and can be an indicator of the deadly disease being present, if birds in that area, have died from it.