Ignorance fought. 
Whiskeyjacks are awesome. I love their constant talk, a a large vocabulary of tweets whistle and coos. They find you pretty quick in the mountains here when a sandwich comes out for lunch. One presented me with a lovely frozen mouse in offer of trade for sandwich once skiing.
There where some ravens in Burstall Pass that would open the zippers on any unattended pack pockets and look for goodies.
There is a full on war on the block between my cats and the local magpie clan. A fledgling was stuck on the ground in our yard for a few days and was actually following the cats around scolding them with the rest of the gang in the trees above screaming. The cats don’t mess with magpies, but the magpies have labelled them public enemy. Little (sic) magpie is flying now but still comes by regularly to scold the cats along with the rest of his crew. The cats are obsessive about standing their ground so it is very noisy around here. I did find a desiccated magpie carcass in the alley so they are probably mad about that too. Although my guys are a great danger to mice, bugs and the occasional small bird (very rarely thankfully), they know their betters.
Magpies are frickin loud so most people despise them around here . They are really smart and are interesting to watch so generally I like them when they are not waking me up with their squawking. They are colourful too.
The collective noun for crows is a “murder”. Makes them more cool I think!
A crow vid!
Don’t throw rocks at corvids.
But remember to leave no tern un-stoned.
That bird is smarter than some people I know.
Crow: “I’m different.”
A few years ago I thought I heard a cat yowling. Took a walk around the neighborhood to see if I could find it. It was coming from a fairly tall tree. The only thing in the tree was a crow. Yep, it was making that sound. It could be heard on a regular basis throughout the neighborhood.
You’re wrong. If your cats live outside, they kill thousands of small creatures (birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians) every year.
Also: cat injuries (bites and scratches) to small animals almost always lead to death from sepsis. Any wildlife rescue worth their salt immediately gives antibiotics if there’s even a suggestion of cat involvement.
good points…I care for parrots and the various messes and general chaos they make has attracked crows, hawks and quite a few songbirds of various types. Food spillage etc.
We grew a lot of palm trees, and think the crows dont like to either grasp that type of foliage, or fly through it. Large groups chase the hawks overhead, but no longer come down to steal food.
slight hijack:I wish the crows would just eat rats… I hate rats (invasive roof/norway rats) Rats here kill many small birds through egg eating, and of course plants and wires in cars and houses. note: Poison is not an option, as it runs up the food chain, and poisons all who eat the poisoned animals. My state CA. is banning the anti-coagulants for that reason.
Around here, the crows have learned the trick of dropping black walnuts on the road in front of approaching cars, hoping that the cars will run over them and crack them. When we see them doing this while we’re driving, Mr. brown tries to drive over the nuts for them.
Here’s a video of a crow in Japan doing the same thing.
Explain this (I posted this once, a while back):
Some years ago, my folks were driving down through Alabama, when my Dad noticed dead crows on the side of the road–turns out it was one dead crow dropped every mile (practically on the dot) for a distance of 30-ish miles! :eek:
Are you picturing Clem in the back of the pick-up with a PBR and a pile of crow carcasses? “Clem! drop another!”
Just saw some crows chasing a hawk down our street this week. I think it was stealing their eggs.
I saw a story in the paper Sunday about how crows may be implicated in helping Helicobacter pylori (a bacterium responsible for gastric ulcers and sometimes lymphoma) spread to humans. This relates to situations where large numbers of crows congregate around livestock barns.
Not sure what would make crows special in this regard (the bug has been found in a number of birds, dogs, cats and other species) except for the phenomenon of large flocks.
That’s distinctly possible given their vocal talents but the vid you posted was exactly what I heard. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen errant birds here.
What am I wrong about? I admit they are hunters - its directly there in the quote you used. What I was saying is they are no match for a Magpie. I understand that this was an irresistible opportunity for you to scold me about letting my cats out, so hey good for you. Bye!
Actually, if you hear it again you should record it. It might be the first record from your province and would be of interest. A recording would be enough to document it officially.
Crows very smart birds as well. I know I’ve posted about this before, but here you go: I was trying to trap a cat and trapped a crow instead. Crow was unharmed and ate all of the bait. I released it as soon as I got home. Crow was pissed. He remembered me and told all of his friends about me. It was years before I could go outside without being harassed.
Most people here don’t like grackles, but I find them to be very entertaining. They are also very clever and their mating ritual hysterical.
I’ve read this is pretty common. Don’t piss 'em off. They have good memories. But, has anyone tried making up to them? If you gave them treats everyday for awhile, would they forgive you?