Barbara J

Last Spring I started feeding two crows. I assumed they were a male and a female because sometimes one deferred to the other. Then, for a time, one was normally gone. There was extra food that they did not eat so they took it away, presumably to cache it. By summer I saw the two adults come to feed, at their regular time, with three juveniles. They showed them where the food was, left and now I rarely see them. However, the three young crows come everyday at the same time and sit and wait patiently and quietly for their food. They are very emotionally needy and want to be fed several times a day but I will only feed once. They never caw but one quietly clucks to get my attention. If the other two are not right there he will caw to tell them I have finally put the food out. Sometimes, but rarely, the parents will come back for food but they usually just let the young ones have it even though there is extra.

I love crows. At first I didn’t. One day I was running in my neighborhood and a crow flew up low behind me and pecked me really hard on the top of my head. Then everyday it did that no matter what side of the street I used. Then it began to notice me a block away, cawing at me and continued to peck me on the head. Finally I avoided that street out of fear but a year later decided to run on it again. Sure enough, a year later, the crow saw me, flew down and pecked me hard on the top of my head. I could never figure out what I had done to that crow unless it was to inadvertently run under a tree where it had babies. Later I read about the University of Washington studies about how crows recognize faces and I became intrigued and started learning more about them. I have a crow experiment in my own backyard now that I will mention later.