Ravens, turns out, are wholly deserving of their millennia-long reputations as tricksters. They are among the most intelligent members of the bird kingdom, capable, even, of rudimentary problem solving.
Owls, by contrast, are brick-dumb. Behind those eyes, one finds little more than a tangled ganglia of nerves sparking like a strand of faulty Christmas lights, capable only of responding as millions of years of evolutionary conditioning dictate.
Why, then, the reputation for wisdom?
Because wisdom ain't wiles. The crow's talent is a result of its remove from its environment. Its problem solving skills and use of simple tools a function of its ability to change the world it inhabits.
Owls' wisdom, arrived at in the old age of their evolution, weds them to their environment. They are stitched into the night seamlessly, sown in place with threads of air. This is why, when an owl unfolds itself from the sky, we feel such shock. It has momentarily divorced itself from the black night, which all but is itself. The seams, as they tear apart, scream like a rabbit split open.
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