The Cornell Lab Bird Academy › Discussion Groups › Anything but Common: The Hidden Life of the American Crow › A Real Murder of Crows
-
The crows I see in my yard seem to be healthy and cooperative.
-
1. Everyone seems healthy. I've not seen any one-footed crows. (The Great Blue Heron that spends most of his time in the pond next to our beach house on the Fla panhandle is missing a foot, but I suspect an alligator. He has trouble perching in the trees, but otherwise seems able to fish, fly and court females.) Don't know about West Nile. 2. Last fall, there was a quite violent encounter, probably territorial. Here's my account from eBird, "Flying widely separated east to west. Lots of calling and flying to and fro over the entire ridge. Judging from an episode yesterday afternoon, there are rival crows in the area... a squad of “soldiers” in a tight, fast-moving flock came over the hill headed west. Then there was a ferocious hullabaloo about a quarter mile away that gave insight to the term “murder of crows”. The conflict moved to the yard diagonally behind mine with 5-6 crows diving at something. What finally escaped was another crow hotly pursued by the flock and driven all the way to the lake. [.5 mi away]" Another curious episode occurred early this spring. Four crows landed on the driveway where I had dumped the feeders to clean them... lots of sunflower seeds, peanuts and cherries. One bird, which was larger (by a good 10%) and shaggier than the others, was begging to be fed...shaking his wings like a fledgling. Very strange. They stamped their feet at him when he came too close, but they didn't drive him off either. As I recall, he didn't seem to understand how to gather and eat for himself. (I had a cowbird chick last summer who acted the same way, while the entire summer flock of 20 + birds chowed down around him.) The crows vacuumed up the peanuts and then left, as a group.
-
1–I have not seen any one legged crows nearby. I have no knowledge of the local impact of West Nile. 2. I have only seen crows cooperating. I did witness several crows trying to get a hawk out of the territory a few years ago. They kept flying into the hawk. After repeated attempts, one of the crows went at the hawk again, there was a tussle, and the crow fell straight down out of the sky. This was taking place at a height above white pines. I realize it’s life in the wild, but it was a little sad and shocking to witness.
-
The crows in my yard all seem very healthy, and they are always cooperative-a few times I have had a falcon fly into the yard and once there was a hawk, and when this has happened crows from other areas in the neighborhood seem to show up to help chase it off. Lately the American crows have been more aggressive with the fish crows, but I don’t know why. It may have something to do with the breeding season? A few years it got really cold in New Orleans (cold for New Orleans anyway), and I noticed a limping crow in the street being attacked by a stray cat. I picked the crow up and brought him inside, and the next day he seemed better, and I let him go. I think he was struggling with the foot injury and the cold though because he came back the next morning, and I fed him and kept him inside again (he seemed to like going under my desk), and that seemed to have done the trick because the next time I put him outside he flew away. I thought the injury had something to do with the cold weather, but now I wonder if it was something else. I don’t usually take in injured wild animals, but nobody else would pick him up, and I couldn’t just watch him get attacked.
-
Wow!
-
-
I live in southern Maine, and I recall reports of dead crows and jays due to WNV a few years back. The state has stopped responding to citizen reports of dead birds (it had encouraged these reports originally) because the data gathered was not useful. The state website reports the reason for this is because birds can fly and where they are found dead may not be where they contracted the disease. Sounds a little lame to me...
-
Hello Peggy, Thanks for the interesting information from Maine. I found out from the instructor
<<All states have realized that testing mosquito pools is a cheaper and more accurate way to find WNV outbreaks than testing dead birds. In the beginning we knew nothing and were trying everything.>> I hope the stopping of testing dead birds now in your area makes more sense now. Thanks for bringing this up.
-
-
1. Yes, our crows seem healthy, but a few days ago I did notice a one-footed crow perched on my bird bath. In fact I was going to remark about it in an earlier lesson but forgot. Not sure if it is foot disease; if it was it is not a clean injury. Yes, WNV did have an impact on the population of crows here and people still monitor for dead crows. 2. I haven't seen anything that I would call aggression, but I did see an argument that I thought was a parent child issue, but that's what I read into it and since none of the crows are marked, I am just projecting. But they do seem to cooperate, walking around & foraging and watching out for each other.
-
Yes, the crows in our area appear healthy. However, last winter we had a crow with an injured foot. You wouldn't know it was injured except he/she did not put any weight on it. He was part of a family of 5 individuals. I think they were the ones in the nest in our neighbor's tall white pine. The family did not nest in that site this year. Come to think of it I did not see much of them beginning in March. A good number of years ago (maybe 7 or 8) my husband found a young crow on the ground who could not manipulate either of its feet. We kept an eye on it, but when the local fox came around, we set the crow on top of a yew bush where it was supported in the boughs. We were hoping to see the mother come to its assistance. Unfortunately, the crow was deceased the next morning. It was odd in that it did not look sick externally - no wounds.
-
Pamela, it very well could have died of West Nile virus if there were no wounds.
-
-
Question 2. I’ve never seen crows being aggressive with each other. I have seen other types squabbling with each other - like Robins.
-
Q1. Yes the crows seem pretty healthy and spunky in my area. I haven’t noticed foot disease. I’m don’t know about West Nile impact in my area. However my birderfriend told me in his county many crows in his area died out from West Nile and that they have not recovered. He said that grackles seemed to have filled in the gaps the crows left behind.This is second hand info so I don’t directly have evidence of this.
-
I once noticed a crow walking on one foot due to an injury on his other foot. Now I understand so much more about foot disease in crows.
Read More: