The other day I was walking in the city when a crow flew by. The sound I heard was ‘Cheeeeep! Cheeeeeep!’ I thought that was an odd sound for a crow to make, but I thought it might just be happy since it had some scrap of food in its beak. When it landed on an awning across the street I saw that the ‘scrap of food’ was a sparrow. It took a couple of seconds for the crow to kill it, and it was soon silenced. The crow had its meal.
I knew crows are omnivorous. I often see them eating invertebrates and carrion. It never occurred to me, since there’s so much easier food about, that they were also hunters of larger game. Belltown: The Wild Kingdom. Who knew?
About a month ago, I was driving along and there were a line of small birds on a power line; I was stopped at a traffic light and happened to look up just as a crow swooped down and plucked one off in a flurry of feathers and flew off with it. Until that moment, I didn’t know crows were active hunters either.
My carnivorous bird story: I used to be a member of my local community garden. We had Guinea pigs to eat scarps and produce manure (and because they are cute). One day I picked up an armful of hay to put in their cage and a mouse dropped out of the hay and onto my boot. The little mousey was a bit stunned (as was I) and it sat not moving for a couple of seconds. Suddenly a kookaburra swooped down from the trees,landed on my other boot, grabbed the mouse in it’s beak and flew away. The Mouse made the sadest sounding sqeeeeeeeeeeck as it was grabbed. This all happened in seconds with me standing there with hay in my arms going wtf just happened
We have a courtyard outside our office window with a couple of large trees, some grass, and a large area filled with jasmine.
One day, I noticed a crow sitting in the tree with something in it’s beak. It tried to readjust its hold, and dropped what it was carrying.
A baby bunny.
The baby seemed stunned when it fell but hid in the jasmine. The crow and a few of its friends hung around for awhile, peering down trying to find the bunny. Until the bunny hopped out of the jasmine. Then swoop the crow grabbed the bunny again and flew away.
Urban wilderness tales, love it. A couple of years ago I saw a falcon being chased by a small murder of crows. It had a dead crow in it’s talons, and flew steadily in large circles gaining altitude the whole time. The crows eventually gave up the chase.
Pelicans prey on and eat pigeons, swallowing them whole. There are a few videos on YouTube, but I’m not going to link to any because they aren’t for those of us with squeamish stomachs.
