The crows are smarter than the squirrels, by a good bit.
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My crow family bring me gifts, lol…almost daily I find bottle caps, pull tabs, scraps of tin foil, on the steps of my front country porch…they love really loves them crackers (salt free only) LOL
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And the crows come and dunk the peanuts in shell in our bird bath to soften them. Occasionally they leave bones. I assume that they’re raiding green bins opened by the raccoons.
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What interesting results! I have squirrels that’d eat anything I put out for crows, and plus crows are too wary of me (so far, anyway). Years back some crows nested near where I live and the noises coming out of the nest tree were pretty amazing, if you get the chance to hear that kind of thing.
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My great grandfather from Massachusetts befriended a crow and taught it to talk. My grandmother and great aunt used to talk about it a lot. The crow would steal clothespins and the clean laundry wound up on the ground.
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Hopefully the population will recover where you are; they did here in semi-urban New England. Took years, though.
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Crows do indeed take eggs and nestlings from other birds’ nests, but mockingbirds are almost crazily territorial. I once watched two of them attacking a red tailed hawk sitting on a building. The feathers on the hawk’s head flew up when they hit it. Then the hawk flew away, and the mockingbirds sat and watched it go. Then they looked at each other and started to fight, lol.
And scrub jays are also territorial, but, strangely, can sometimes be easily fed: I think they get used to humans and humans having food?, and get weirdly tame. A Western Scrub Jay took food right out of my hand at the SF Botanical Garden park. I recognized the kind of bird sitting in a bush, clicked at it as a test, and sure enough it came down and took a bit of food out of my hand.
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Lloyd, that’s enlightening. Mockingbirds are assholes. Really talented assholes. God help you if one picks a tree outside your bedroom window from which to serenade everyone at 4am. Despite their shitty demeanor, I really like them.
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mission accomplished, i have a few friends in my area that are crows. they are picky eaters in the same way humans are, in that they don’t want to eat the same thing everyday. also, just because they are black colored doesn’t make them evil. otherwise, good tips. after five years, they won’t be that wary, at least in my experience
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Pass the blunt
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Beautiful photograph. They really are smart looking in their glossy black suit.
The Corvids in Auckland are limited to Magpies, which people persist in lying about “They peck out children’s eyes ! ! !” is the first thing said. When you ask where all these blind children are, or why it isn’t in the newspaper when it happens though ?. They merely say “everyone knows it !”.
Years ago there was a screaming from the garden after a storm, and I went out to find a wet, under nourished and grounded female Magpie, quite obviously an older bird from the wear on its beak and legs.
I don’t think it was screaming for peoples help, but with just a little gentle talking it allowed me to pick it up, take it inside, dry it with a towel, and then she ate from my fingers. Might have been a lost pet, but I don’t think it was, because when I took it outside, the rest of the local gang was perched about the garden.
The next morning, I was outside cleaning up from the storm and she flew onto a low branch, looked at me, and softly made the three note call they use to tell one another where they are. And that was me with not just a single pet called Lovely, but also her “mate” Nasty Bird, who never allowed anyone to handle him but would take food from my fingers, and also five years worth of her young, which she would bring along still fluffy, herd them into the garden, then sit on my arm and “reassure” them with particular calls that meant, it seemed to me, “It is ok, come on then, don’t be silly”.
The whole family got to know them, and it was very obvious that the adult birds could meet a human or even a dog, once, and them know them to be “safe” even though they might not see them again immediately. My Blue dog had been told not to mug the Magpies, and the birds obviously knew this, and would walk right up to him, and try to steal from his bowl. He would growl, and turn his back on them, but they knew he was safe, just like they knew my brothers dog was unsafe.
Their nest was (still is) in a tree on the top of one of Aucklands volcanoes, line of sight 300 mtrs from my yard, and she would see me open the back door and launch straight down without flapping her wings once. If some stranger was outside, and I wanted to show off “my” birds, I could go out, whistle my attempt at their call sign, and if she was in the tree watching, she would launch, trusting me that it was a “good” stranger.
I loved her, am a little sad now thinking that she is gone like we all must, but she was Lovely, very friendly and affectionate ( it seemed to me, of course. I am aware it was a cold dinosaur really. ) Nasty Bird drops by sometimes, for a feed, very rarely one of the others, but there isn’t the same bond, they won’t talk back like she always did, we would be outside, doing stuff, after feeding her, and you could whistle to her and she would put her head back and do the full “Yarglearglebargle” thing for you.
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Here in Toronto, West Nile wiped out most of the crows, and the recent construction boom has encouraged the rat population. I miss having a higher class of secondary scavenger here in Raccoon City.
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1 caw: alarm
2 caws: food.
3 caws: outsider (also cat, owl, elephant, etc.).
4+: IDK, some say there’s info up to 7.
an endless stream of caws: harassment
the closer they are together the more urgent
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I misused this a day or two ago in a thread about ravens, but it fits here:
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/jackson-pollock-his-pet-crow-cawcaw-3890
I always figured something would go awry with this, and perhaps it has, but I’ve never heard of it:
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#“How to befriend your neighborhood crows”
Sing 'em a catchy anthem?
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I started with a giant bag of spare cat food that we had, then when my mealworm breeding project was way more successful than one lizard could possibly need, started putting out platters of mealworms.
Now I can’t go out to water my plants without the crows starting to gather (which is kind of cool).
And the interesting thing is that, even though there are now more crows around my place, my car doesn’t seem to get pooped on (by much of anything) anymore. Probably coincidental. Probably that most other birds (except for this weird group of mourning doves) tends to stay away.
Also, buy a crow call. They’re made for hunters, but I can’t think of a better way to let them know soups on!
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The ones in Japan are really huge. They would always work in teams on burnable rubbish day, to lift the net over the trash bags. choose the bag with the most decomposing meat in it, drag it out and scatter it at the base of my steps. The local cats were terrified of them and would hide under the stairs until they were done before going out for scraps.
One time we were playing frisbee on the beach, and someone yelled and pointed at our bags of food up on the seawall. One of them was rooting through our stuff. I was closest, and when I yelled and started running over, he looked up, figured out how long he had, stuck his head back in the bag, and flew away with a large, unopened, bag of potato chips up to the top of a telephone pole, and proceeds to sit there and look at me while he opens the bag and eats the chips.
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I throw leftover pizza crusts, stale bread, unsalted sunflower seeds, etc. out on our deck, then come inside. The crows come pretty quickly, and provide endless entertainment for our indoor-only cats.
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