Funny thing I've noticed about crows
 

They're famously super smart and very social, they'll peacefully share their habitat with squirrels but they have no qualms against eating a squirrel carcass, and I don't ever remember seeing a crow attack a squirrel. If the crows had any human influence at all, it would surely be fait-accompli that squirrels would need to learn to defend or disguise themselves because crows would be nothing but black hell raining down from the skies.

(It's a beautiful day here in PDX, and I've been outdoors in the sun watching the world go by. Plenty of C's and S's scratching about looking for food in the neighborhood)

Nice post.

I find myself getting lost in the abundance of wild life here - just on my small property - the trees and palms providing much of their habitat.

Not a bad expenditure of one's time.....

I don't think we have Crows here so much as Ravens. Those big boys can make a racket and be very territorial. It's amazing to hear them clucking and talking to each other. And dropping nuts to crack them open, lots of entertainment value.

The squirrels and the crows have a deal.

That's exactly right! You nailed it!

Interesting observation Mike. You should contact David Attenborough, I'll bet he never thought of that.

Crows will eat other critters. I've seen one eat baby birds out of a nest.

I don’t recall if it was crows or ravens, but years ago when we were snowmobiling in West Yosemite, the Ranger told us to check our bags when we got back to the parking lot. It seems the crows/ravens had an uncanny ability to unzip and unbutton bags to get to food. When we got back to our snowmobiles there were multiple bags unzipped.

Who would’ve thought !

I bet he thought of that when he was nine. Worked it out, stored it away. Had bigger thoughts and observations and made a career for himself.


;)

Crows and Ravens are the harbingers of events.

A flock of them are murder.

Black death from the skies.

(Potentially. Watch out squirrels, we're called a murder.)

But not as flamboyant as the flock of flamingos!

Not nearly.

In downtown Davis, Ca (aka cowtown) I've witnessed more birds than tree leafs.
And yeah. Every single car was 'white'. The noise.

They don’t bother live squirrels because they derive a benefit from coexistence.

Crows, Ravens, are wicked smart.

I’ve got a local murder of them that i’m trying to befriend.

Mostly because they are pissed at me for rescuing a baby dove they were pack hunting,

They are very vocal about reminding me when they see me. They remember and recognize individuals.

Trying to get back on their good side because i find them fascinating and would welcome the interaction.

Great thread! Love those birds... Watched an few Ravens going about their business in Santa Fe this afternoon.

In the last few years, the crow population in my area has exploded. Sometimes there are so many sitting in the trees that it seems like being in a Hitchcock movie.

They’ll often join forces and dive-bomb the hawks that happen to venture into their territory. Probably protecting their nests…

I thought Vacaville was 'cowtown'...:)

Yeah, there's a crapton crows around.

Jays and Crows part of the Corvids. They're really smart birds, tend to like shiney objects such as the zippers on your packs of food. And every now and then one comes to you as a pre-fledgling that you take care of and sticks around for a year before joining the wild flock.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1676004169.jpg

You're killing me, Smalls.

Wasilla, Alaska in the late 80's going through the McDonald's parking lot and Ravens were right next to the cars waiting for scraps. They are sizeable and were quite comfortable being there.

From Raven in Haida Culture, the Trickster,

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1676036570.jpg

Macbeth: Lady Macbeth tells us how the raven predicts the king’s murder:

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.

Dickens.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1676036570.jpg

Castaneda

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1676036570.jpg

We have a "murder" of crows that hang out in our area. Cool birds. I walked out our front door to go get the mail, and startled about 10 or 12 crows and they took off squawking and chattering and I think I was cussed out in crow speak.

We have a McDonald's and a Sonic about a mile away "as the crow flies" and we can only guess someone throws out an entire burger bun in the yard or parking lot. We see 1/2 a bun in our birdbath all the time. They will bring the entire bun, or large hunks of it, and "stash" it in the yard and poke it down, or the messy part, stash it in the birdbath water. Of course bread in water turns to goo pretty quickly. My wife is the official bird bath filler, and she has to splash the goo out and fill it with water. It gets pretty gross looking. In the summer I put mosquito tablets in it to prevent skeeters from breeding.

I came home from work about 20 years ago and saw about 6 or so crows in my backyard. They were attacking a baby rabbit. As I walked up to the house, one of them started to fly off with it in his mouth, but I guess it was too much weight and he a dropped it at about 6 feet up. Little bunny lived to see another day.
Just yesterday a group of 4-5 crows were harassing a hawk in a tree in the yard. I guess they wanted to chase away the competition.

Yes, those would be the bloomin' crow cusses;)

Best
Les

My neighborhood is pretty wooded and full of wildlife. I have an irrational interest in two bird species: Hummingbirds and Crows.

I have taken to feeding the crows a cup or so of dry dogfood on the ground. Wow. You would think they are in crow heaven. A source of constant amusement for me.

It is not so much that they have a deal as that a crow has enough sense to know that if it tries to kill and eat a squirrel, it is liable to get injured.

Crow is smart enough to know better than to get in a fight unless they are sure to win with alacrity.

All I know about crows is that they are super-smart.
As a teen..we would try to shoot them while squirrel hunting. It was next to impossible to get a bead on them...their eyesight must be incredible.

We were playing a course near Calabash, NC a bunch of years ago and on one hole as we were warming up some black birds (maybe crows, but they seemed smaller than crows) zipped into the carts and picked off the cookies and anything else that was edible. It was all over in a moment. That same area of coastal NC has a squirrel variant called fox squirrels, and they have a little fox-like face. It was a great area but now it seems like greater Myrtle Beach has found it.

Funny you should say. When I walk in the neighborhood park, I often take a pocketful of Milk Bone™ dog biscuits in case there's any cute women that I would like to chat up and who happen to have dogs. Still waiting for my lucky break on that front.

In the meantime, I'll break up a few of the biscuits to feed the crows. They love it, and they wait and pester me for more when I walk my laps past them. They definitely recognize people and they love getting snacks.

Crows love roadside kill.
They are smart enough that they stay with the carcass even with traffic passing.

Crows hunt in packs not unlike other apex predators.

It was fascinating watching their cooperation when going after that baby dove I rescued.

It was a group of around 6 crows.

There were 2 that where perching on rooftops calling out to the others on the doves location / movement.

When the dove flew into some bushes a couple others took up deep safety positions will the rest tried to flush the dove out.

At one point the dove got out and flew under a parked car.

The lookouts called to the ground troops directing them to the car and they assumed the same deep cover / blitz formations.

Was fascinating to see how well they worked together. Kind scary actually.

The same group moves down my street every morning and if I go outside when they are within a house or two of me they get very obviously agitated at my presence.

I can tell you from personal experience and it’s a fact: not all crows are smart.

However, there is a pair who lives somewhere in the trees near me that I’d like to befriend but don’t know how.

Any advice?

I’d like to set the record straight. This Van Gogh was not the last of his paintings. Very close, but not his last. This, Tree Roots, is unfinished and currently believed to have been his last and unfinished:

https://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/van-gogh-tree-roots-and-trunks-1.jpg

If anyone should know about crows, it should be you, Crowbob.

Go out and feed them some dry dog or cat food. Put the food out in a place they will feel safe to eat it, so a open area.

Back bad old days when I commuted to work I drove down a fairly low use 4 lane road. There was some roadkill right on the yellow dividing line. The road is pretty flat, and there was only one other car coming from the other direction. Off iin the distance I saw the crow eating some of the roadkill, and as the other car approached, it waled 3 feet or so over the yellow line and waited for the car to pass, and it walked over and pecked at the roadkill as I approached. As I got closer, it stepped over the yellow line a few feet, and waited for me to pass. I could see in the rear view mirror as he just walked back over to the roadkill. He seemed to understand the flow of traffic, and the yellow line. It was pretty cool. No flying off and wasting energy, just a few steps and keep on back to eating.

Thanks, Glen.

I’ll try that. When I was growing up a kid had a murder of ‘em come flocking around him with one of them alighting on his outstretched (and gloved) hand when he called out to them. They were BIG, too.

One of my wife's co-workers managed to find a baby crow, and they raised it as a pet. They even gave it freedom to fly around, outside, but it knew where the free food was, so it came back. It would bring home shiny tools and sockets or nuts and bolts all the time.

The wild crows were unhappy with it, and would kind of beat it up if it was out and about. It knew just fly down to one of the humans and the wild ones would not dare come close.