Pigeons: rats with wings
Crows: flying coyotes
I prefer magpies, those are beautiful
I went to the Grand Canyon a few months ago and spent a good chunk of time watching the crows that were lurking around the edge of the canyon at Guano Point, begging for scraps from people having lunch at the unfortunately named “Guano Café”, and occasionally taking off to soar around on the eddies through the canyon. I even noticed them just standing around with their mouths open - I’ve never seen crows pant before, but I suspect they must have been doing something like that because of how damn hot it was that day.
One of the ladies at work said that her son, when he was a small boy, took a swing at a crow that landed near him. He’s fifteen now, and still gets harassed by crows every time he goes outside.
Crows are assholes:
http://corvidblog.tumblr.com/post/37622242234/tail-pulling
And incredibly smart:
(Summary: the crows figured out that dropping a nut from a height would sometimes crack the nut. If they dropped the nut in front of traffic, then the cars would crack the nut, but the crows then had to dodge cars. The crows figured out that they should drop the nuts in a crosswalk and wait for the light.)
Snap. I’ve seen what crows do to baby lambs. Not high on my favourite bird list. Magpies on the other hand…
It’s nesting season which means it’s Magpie swooping season. I go out in the park next door on the weekend and take out some meat in my hand and take a seat. Within about 10 minutes I’ll have 2-5 wild Magpies happy to fly down, run the last 10 metres and come up and take a piece of meat out of my hand. They bash it against the ground, break it into small bits, eat it, fly back to the nest to feed the young then rinse and repeat.
A great video of a swooping magpie. THE EYES DON’T WORK!
That magpie thing was hilarious!
Mister Rik, I am so envious of your experience with that crow. I would have loved to have been there. Please let us know if it shows up again and please post pictures!
I’ve been wanting to post to this thread since I saw it a few days ago but every time I write something, it gets so long-winded that I think no one will want to read it. Wolf333’s link to the magpie made me decide to break my silence.
I’ve had a crow hit me on the back of the head like the magpie in the video but in his (or her) case, it wasn’t because he thought he was protecting his babies. It was to remind me it was treat time. I used to volunteer at a public garden tending the roses and I always brought peanuts to dole out to the crows as I worked. I also used to play Scrabble and such with friends at the senior center just across the parking lot from the garden.
On Scrabble days, at lunch time, I’d go over to the garden while the others ate. Sometimes, I’d forget the peanuts so I’d buy a bag of animal crackers from the vending machine. But sometimes I’d find I didn’t have enough change so I’d have to go treatless.
So one day, I was crossing parking lot heading to the garden when, Bam! A crow swooped up behind me and whacked me on the back of the head with his belly! He landed maybe fifteen feet away and looked at me expectantly. I had to tell him, sorry, no treats today.
About a month later, on another treatless lunchtime trip to the garden, he did it again. And again. And again. At least a dozen times. Each time, he’d land a safe distance in front of me an look at me expectantly. Sorry, Mr. (or Ms.) Crow, whacking me won’t make treats appear in my hands.
While he never did that to me again, I know two other people he gave single whacks to. One fed the crows leftover popcorn from the senior center from time to time and the other was crossing the parking lot with an open bag of Doritos in her hand. I hope he does this rarely enough that non-crow lovers won’t consider him a pest.
He never did that when I was working in the garden though I didn’t feed them peanuts as frequently as they might have liked. I think it’s because I wore a hat to keep the sun out of my eyes.
I haven’t been to the garden or senior center since I moved in May. I miss the crows there (and my friends, too.) Crows have such good memories that I know if I went back now, some would remember me and make themselves known. Certainly Mr. Whacky McWhackerson would.
As much as I understand that ravens and crows may go after cute, tiny animals I really don’t get liking magpies at all. I know they are corvids but they hang around in groups trying to look pretty, making as much noise and be as annoying as possible. Basically they are the teenagers of the bird world.
Reminds me of something I saw about a month ago near a busy intersection controlled by lights. A crow was eating some kind of road kill. As the lights changed and traffic was headed for his lane, he stepped two inches over the yellow line (into a lane that had no traffic directed to it) and patiently waited until the light changed and he could resume his meal. Every car turning into that lane was briefly headed right for that crow, but he knew they’d all continue turning and that the yellow line was essentially as safe as a wall. (Maybe it’s because I know drivers can be idiots, but I would not have been quite so calm about sitting there.)
I guess that makes me an asshole, too, because I found that whole post hilarious, especially the animated GIF at the end. 
Some more good stuff on smart crows:
I read the story about the crows bringing gifts a few weeks ago, and I wondered…
What if a hypothetical person, on getting to the stage where crows bring gifts/payment for food, started rewarding only specific kinds of gift? Round, shiny ones, say, approximately the size of coins. Or papery ones, for example, roughly, ooh, let’s say roughly the size and shape of pound notes. Could crows be trained to act as money-harvesters? I suspect if you had a better knowledge of operant conditioning techniques than I do now, you could teach them quite quickly. Would that be wrong? To become the Fagin to a ragamuffin collection of corvid Artful Dodgers?
I gave up this dream when I realised that, if successful, the crows probably wouldn’t stop at bringing you money off the street. At some point, one bolder crow would snatch money from someone’s hand, and then the reign of winged banditry would begin…
Yes, apparently. Joshua Klein gave a TED Talk about his vending machine for crows.
And here I am thinking they were fun because they are the only legal thing I can shoot on Sunday after church.
I agree, although I think we are convoluting species here,
True ravens on the other hand can be a good buddy in the wild.
Besides the preacher? Just joking…jeesh!
when humans are dead and gone, it’s the crows and cockroaches who will rule the world.
I saw this the other day: crows bring gifts to people who are nice to them.
When I was a kid we would all call them blackbirds.
Some of the redwing blackbirds would actually talk back to me while I laid in the alfalfa field that my family grew. (Can still remember that smell of it).
:)Fond memories of a school-aged kid watching the sky and clouds and wishing I could fly.
Anyway, thanks for this post since Spring is in the air around these parts of the planet and the birds are out and singing.
Why is it that in almost every animal-related thread, someone posts just to talk about killing, eating, or harming the animal? Even pets. It seems sociopathic.