A comment I occasionally hear, especially while conducting my research in neighborhoods is, “Ugh, I hate the crows. All of a sudden we have tons of crows and they’ve scared off all our songbirds!” This comment always pains me, but I understand that for most people it arises from a genuine concern for songbird abundance and conservation. First off, as a reminder crows are songbirds themselves; ravens are our biggest songbird. Semantics aside, I understand that there are many, many bird lovers who just can’t get on the crow bandwagon and when they talk about wanting songbirds at their feeders they mean chickadees, juncos, grosbeaks, etc. They feel that since the “arrival” of the crows their observations of these other birds have diminished. So is there anything to this? Do crows indeed drive down populations of small, “desirable” backyard birds?
I came across this grizzly scene while conducting research in Bellevue. An adult robin calling frantically while a crow munched on one of its young. Later that same week I would watch of pair of adult crows chase hopelessly after a cooper’s hawk that had taken one of their offspring.
The short answer is: not usually. Now, let’s be clear, crows will absolutely kill and eat eggs, nestlings and even adult birds if they can get their hands on one. I once saw a crow take down an adult house sparrow in an attack so quick and dexterous I only realized what had happened after the crow had already started eating its meal. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that crows are one of many, many animals that are eating the young and adults of other bird species. Raccoons, squirrels, foxes, hawks, owls, bullfrogs, rats, mice, and of course cats will all gladly eat birds, especially eggs and nestlings. The vulnerability of young birds is in fact why the breeding strategy of many birds is to have multiple clutches over the course of the breeding season. Crows themselves are subject to these same predators and very few of their young will make it to adulthood.
Why do we think that crows aren’t responsible for the any observed decrease in feeder birds? Predator removal studies. These studies are straightforward and essentially create two populations, a control population that has been unmodified and a second where the predator in question has been actively removed. Prey abundance or productivity is monitored and compared at the end of the trial.
Recently, Madden et al. published a comprehensive literature review of 42 studies across 9 countries that looked at the impacts of corvid removal on a variety of avian groups including gamebirds, passerines, waders and other ground nesting birds. They found that in 81% of cases corvid removal made no impact on prey abundance or productivity. They also found that impacts of corvids on prey species was similar, and no one group was particularly more sensitive than any others. Of the corvids studied, magpies consistently had the smallest impact on prey productivity, but no difference was found if the study was looking at prey abundance. So if corvids are such conspicuous avian predators, why doesn’t their removal seem to matter in most cases?
This is explained by idea of compensatory mortality, which is essentially that removing one predator just means that the other predators will account for its absence by eating the prey it otherwise would have. Kevin McGowan provided a great description for this idea on his site “I like to use the analogy of handicapped parking spaces at the mall You drive up to the mall, looking for a parking space in a crowded lot. You can’t find a parking space, but there are four near the entrance that are reserved for handicapped permits only. You complain and think that if only those handicapped restrictions weren’t there, you could park in those spots (common sense). In truth, of course, if those spaces were not reserved they would have been taken long ago, just like all the other spaces in the lot.” Indeed, Madden et al. found this to be true. When they looked at studies that only conducted corvid removal, they found that only 16% of cases saw a difference in prey productivity. Whereas if all predators were removed the researchers reported that 60% of studies found a significant difference in prey productivity.
What this means for those of us trying to improve the bad reputations of crows and other corvids is that the data is on our side, crows are not usually the problem predators they’re often made out to be (though in a small number of instances they are, and it’s important to acknowledge when that’s the case). In fact, in 6% of cases the researchers found that corvid presence actually benefited other birds. So what I suspect is happening when residents ask me why they see fewer birds and if crows are to blame is that crows often follow urban development and it’s possible that what these residents are experiencing is a change in species diversity as habitats are disrupted and modified to make way for new human settlements. Though it’s also possible they simply don’t know where to look. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve listened to folks complain about crows driving away their birds in the presence of yellow-rumped warblers, white crowned sparrows, juncos and chickadees. Indeed, suburbia is often a great place to enjoy both crows and other smaller songbirds.
John Marzluff’s newest book which describes the awesome power of suburbia to become a heaven for a huge diversity of birds. Illustrations by my friend and colleague, Jack DeLap.
John Marzluff’s new book Welcome to Subirdia, highlights that vast species diversity that can come with suburban development, showing that these types of habitat modifications aren’t doomed to be low diversity. With a bit of thought on our part, we can create habitats that attract a variety of birds. Namely, by limiting lawn space, increasing snags, native plants and bushes and keeping our cats indoors, we can expect to see a great variety of birds visiting our feeders, crows included!
Madden, C.F., Beatriz A., Amar, A. (2015) A review of the impacts of corvids on bird productivity and abundance. Ibis: 157, 1-16.
corvidresearch.blog 
Thanks for the great article Kaeli, I am a avid crow lover and I too have been faced with the same argument. Now you have given me some good points to argue with.
Thank you, Nikki. I really appreciate that.
I saw a crow landing with a tan bundle in its beak under my deck. It was being flocked by Grackles and Blue-jays. After bouncing on the ground it landed on a neighbors roof peak. I got binoculars to see it carried a small half grown Robin. I saw tufts of feathers fly out as it pecked and munched with the other birds swooping, a Blue-jay actually swooped and beaked the crows back. It took off out-of-sight with over twelve raucous birds screaming and diving on it.
Been around crows half my life and never saw anything like this. Knew they ate carrion and don’t know if the baby Robin was already dead or was killed by the crow.
I had three pet crows when younger, super smart pets! Always liked and thought highly of crows, but this has me wondering.
They probably killed it. As I say in the article, when they have opportunities for predation they take them, as hard as it is for us to swallow when it happens in our yards!
I have been seeing a lot of crows in my wooded neighborhood. Far more than in the over 20 years I have lived here. Yesterday, I walked out my front door to go around the house to my car in my driveway. I heard racket of birds chirping loudly & frantically. I looked towards the street to my right. A crow was in the street with robins and other birds about 10 or 12 in number were situated about 8 or 10 feet away on both sides of that crow. The birds were cackling loudly and taking turns diving into the back of that crow. I then noticed the crow was devouring a small slain bird with his beck. Picking the dead bird off the pavement with his pecks. I came within about 20 feet of the may-lay as I went to my car. The crow didn’t fly off but several birds flew into one of my trees. I did notice the crow, the dead bird and all the other birds were gone when I turned back around upon reaching my car. I lived rural many years and often saw 50 or 60 crows in a single tree on the distant hills of my property. I had never seen a crow attack another bird before though I did know they were omniivores.
The crows are very numerous now because of the construction workers dropped food and chips. And you can feed the dead crows to the neighbor’s cats to help them control their urges too ; ) .
I’ve deleted your other comment because I won’t allow the avocation of poaching to go unchecked. But I’ll leave this comment up so the gist of your perspective is shared.
OMG I’m reeling.
I was wondering what was killing the cedar waxwings by the apple trees on our street, as there were numerous kill-sites ( “puddles” of waxwing feathers) Yesterday I found the answer, as I saw a crow ambush a waxwing and kill it. Now I know.
Scott, ceder waxwings are one of my favorite migrants and I would certainly grimace at the loss. But a cool predation event to see nonetheless! Where’s there’s one predator there’s usually more and depending on where you live I’d look for a cooper’s or sharp-shined hawk since they’ll be keeping their eyes on the waxwing flocks as well.
“Cool Predation Event”? OK, that’s just whacked.
Nothing wrong with appreciating the role and behavior of predators. In fact I’d argue it’s essential to preserving wildlife considering that, as a group, predators represent some of the most maligned, targeted, and vulnerable species on the planet. So, yeah, in my book, a really adept take down of another bird is just as kick ass a way to get food as a really specialized system for breaking down plant material. We need them all, so let’s show them all some love, regardless of what they eat for dinner.
There’s nothing wrong with observing and admiring nature and ecology. No one necessarily enjoys watching something die, but predators in the natural world are an essential part of the environment around us and what we come from. To consider it “whacked” is to kind of close off to a reality of the world we’re in.
Now in terms of humans, it’s a different set of rules, so it’s best not to project our behaviors on other species.
Thanks for the info on crows! I came here wondering how the crows would affect my feeders since they showed up this Spring. They’re so smart. It’s fascinating seeing how they examine and explore the feeders compared to other birds.
You’re welcome, Ben!
you are really an ignorant person who acts like a smart one , just because you think yu are some expert on crows.
crows actually are a hugely significant impact on house sparrows and any chirping bird or bird of the slghtest colour.
a classic example is the suburbs of mumbai , india where i have been born. crows are so rampant , every morning growing up there was either a sparrow or another bird of colour that would either crash into our windows or escape crows by entering my home. that my mother never allowed keeping a bird, always took the piss as she was a messed up woman, but she is another story.
as i grew up , there had been a marked decrease of house sparrows , parroots or other birds of colour in Mumbai.. you almost never see any anymore. iam sure there are other factors, and other predators, but crows are like cats . they also kill and cull other weaker birds simply for pleasure.
the crows seem to tired out and seem blind early in the evening , start preying on birds really early mornings when they seem energised. this is around when the smaller birds are beginning to gather their senses about what is happenign around
crows have had a direct impact on sparrows which almost no longer exist in several suburbs of mumbai. alll this eagle and hawk stories of yours, yes they are predators but they dont go around helter skleter culling and killing smaller birds .. crows do it sadistically and its almost a hobby for them. as the chirping birds have reduced dramatically in mumbai, i have also viewed crows preying on pigeons often in our area. pigeons are the least favourite meal of crows. two crows together can easily ruin the life out of a pigeon. crows also move in packs in these densely populated areas.
i now live in the uk( since 12 years ) and for the first time during lockdown did i start hearing so many chirping birds in my area. reason clearly that crows were not gettting food thrown away on the streets as often… and with smaller birds always finding insects easily……. i have woken up and noticed since hte last two to three weeks, the chirping bird sounds reduce .. and the crowing of crows / ravens increase in my area.
culling of crows in areas where they frequetn too often should be legalised in countries so that the impact be studied on smaller birds. i know there will be massive success in densely populated cities of the world if the crows are eradicated. it will be highly ignorant of you to delete my post which has been extremely well thought out just because i feel cullnig of crows is valid
in densely populated areas, smaller chirping birds also are reduced by
– loss of habitat
– mobile and cell towers and radiations
– a lot of bigger predators which loiter about areas of dense human populations becaus there is more to feed on.
however, i am certain about the significant impact of crows on chirping birds, and i absolutely encourage culling of crows in large numbers periodically to maintain the balance of bird life.
Hi Monty, as I mention in the article, scientists in a variety of countries have actually tested your hypothesis that removing crows will benefit other songbirds. You may want to give those articles a read, as their findings seems quite relevant to your concerns and more importantly where we might better put our energies in helping birds. Cheers,
Kaeli
PS there was a phrase you used a number of times, “birds of color”. Can you elaborate on what that phrase means? Is it meant to contrast against the blackness of crows? I am curious because house crows are of course not just black. But it’s an interesting turn of phrase and I’d be glad to know more about what you intended as its meaning. Is it a common phrase in India or the UK?
monty: I resent the tone of your comments. The host of this site has consistently been respectful and considerate of those who post. Because your opinion differs, doesn’t mean yours is right. It’s just your opinion.
While damning crows, you don’t make any reference to the damage humans do to the colourful or chirping birds. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognise that humans do more damage to songbirds, in less time, than crows are capable of doing. Human arrogance is the epitome of destruction.
Reblogged this on Kaeli Swift and commented:
Updated with data from a new review of studies looking at impacts of corvid removal on other birds.
Recently a group of blackbirds (with young) attacked a crow in my garden
And he had to be rescued , he is ok now and still comes for tit bits and he can now fly ok
Geoff kettleborough
Pingback: Clever crows! | Jeff Ollerton's Biodiversity Blog
Not so sure — I was feeding small songbirds — now I have only crows patrolling – not a single smaller songbirds
I always loved crows and still do but — I monitored the facts on my balconies…
While personal observations are a key part of good citizen science it’s always important to remember that the plural of anecdote is not data. Individual results may vary but the vast majority of studies (each which incorporate many more individual data points) suggest that corvids do not reduce populations. But keep watching! Look for other sources of decline too, like neighborhood cats, changes in feeders and development.
My balcony was always the place for Hooded Crows ..Now they share it with at least 20 very healthy sparrows and blue tits .No squabbling indeed the sparrows seem to rule .Owls , cats , humans all are threats to wild birds . For me , Corvids are the Wagnerian Opera Singers …Always impressive .
We have resident crows and a huge population for sparrows, juncos, finches, hummies and flickers.. oh can’t forget the Robins!! All get along or so it seems.
I don’t have anything against crows. We have noticed a pattern. In the winter, we have all kinds of birds in our yard. There are finches, juncos, chicadees, woodpeckers, bewick’s wrens, red-breasted nuthatches, and titmice, to name a few. Sometime in March, a group of crows starts flying around, cawing, and hanging out in the trees. Until late summer, we won’t see any birds but a few crows, some scrub jays, and an occasional California towhee. Does the threat of crow predation send all other birds to another location? Thanks-Valerie
Hi Wendy, what you’re describing sounds like seasonal changes. During the winter the small songbirds you mentioned form mixed-species flocks and move about pretty freely. Starting in spring though, the birds start to defend their territories much more fiercely and it can feel like you’re seeing less. They’re also less attracted to feeders which can mean you’re seeing them in less concentrated abundance. So that’s my guess. To answer your question more directly though, while taking a walk through my neighborhood this winter I counted 10 native bird species in a single yard along with a territorial pair of crows. Crows simply don’t take adult birds down often enough to suffice as a predator that would have that immense of non-consumptive effects (i.e. When predator presence changes the spatial use of prey we call that non-consumptive effects). If you make your yard suitable for song birds to hid in (think native shrubs) then they should easily cohabitate with your crow family. Enjoy the birds!
Hi corvidresearch thank you for creating this great area to discuss crows; I’d love to hear what you have to say about two of my anecdotal experiences and how they fall into what is generally understood about crow behavior.
I live in Northern Virginia. Both of these incidents were roughly the same and both occurred in residential neighborhoods in late Spring. Last year in May I saw a crow in my neighborhood on top of a chimney that was eating something (I didn’t know what at the time) and being attacked by two Brewer’s blackbirds. The crow had to move quickly and landed on a nearby chimney where I could tell that he/she was eating a baby Brewer’s blackbird. The blackbirds gave up at this point.
Yesterday I saw roughly the same thing in Old Town Alexandria in a small residential park. This time I saw the crow take the blackbird from the ground and fly with it up to a chimney. Almost 8-10 Brewer’s blackbirds were going absolutely crazy trying to stop the crow for 20 seconds or so and then the gave up; the crow ate the blackbird on the chimney.
I am writing for two reasons. First, I have Brewer’s blackbirds in my yard here and the babies just emerged a week or so ago and follow the mother (I’m guessing) around in the yard. They are huge for babies, and appear almost bigger than the parents. That’s why I noticed them and what is what is so odd. I understand crows taking fallen babies or defenseless ones from an unattended nest…but…taking a non-injured robust baby off the ground? Is this normal behavior? I ask because the little research I did into this seems to indicate that crows will only eat a bird if it is already physically ‘opened’ because they do not possess the right beak to kill birds. The bird I saw on the ground getting taken did not have that appearance (but I can’t say I was preparing to collect avian data when I turned to see).
The crows here were decimated (as per my understanding) a decade or so ago by some disease. In the 80’s and 90’s in Northern Virginia there were oooodles of crows (treefull after treefull) and now there are very few. Is it possible that they’re exhibiting strange behavior due to the entire structure of crow communities being lost?
Thoughts?
-Thank you, A.P.
Hi Andrew, thank you for your kind words. The short answer is that crows are more than capable of killing and opening birds. Most mammals, on the other hand, are a different story because the skin is thicker. Think about it this way; since they are capable of killing each other, smaller birds are no problem. I’ve seen them attack and kill adult songbirds on more than one occasion (both times it was a house sparrow). That being said, they’re not bird eating specialists so while it’s not an unusual behavior it’s also not a common one, if that makes sense. The limitation is their ability to catch birds, not eat them, which is why observations of them eating fledgling are much more common in contrast to adults. On another note, although fledgling are often similar in size to their parents, you might want to google “cowbird fledgling” so see if maybe your big babies are in fact nest parasites. Great observations!
I appreciate your interest in crows, however, I am currently devastated by the behavior of a family (murder) of crows in my neighborhood. I enjoy hosting sites in my yard for various species of birds, especially the Robin. I have watched a mother Robin spread her wings protectively over her young during a late season snow storm that left her with a half inch of snow over her entire body as she sat through the night keeping the babies alive. This season there is a young pair that worked tirelessly gathering mud from my backyard ( I helped along in this process). They were at the stage where they obviously had chicks and were busy looking for food. The nest was high in a maple tree in my front yard which I was not able to locate visually. Yesterday the attack by the crows began. I knew what they were doing in that tree and watched sadly as one of the crows flew off with a baby clutched in its talons. The mother, father, and I were devastated. I listened to the distress cry from those birds for a half hour and determined that I would do great harm to those crows if they came near another nest. I now understand that crows are protected by law, which is unfortunate, because today they have raided two other Robin nests in close proximity. I have a Robin still nesting near the house and a sparrow in a hanging planter that I am now taken actively protecting from the crows. Make no mistake; I will forcefully clear the area to protect the smaller birds who are being terrorized by this crow family. I can do so without harming the crows, but it will take some vigilance on my part. If they persist I may borrow a cat from friends for a season, and I do hope the cat is successful in returning the favor of nest robbing from the crows. I understand crows can memorize faces and details for several years. I hope they tell each other that they have created an enemy at my address.
People have a very difficult time watching baby birds die, understandably. Just the other day I received an email nearly identical to yours, but replace robin babies with crow babies and crow with Cooper’s hawk. The reality is most baby birds will die before the end of the breeding season. I know it’s tempting to think, oh if only I kept x predator away they would live, but this is not the case. They are just eaten by a different predator or fly into a window (something called compensatory mortality). Given that you have three different pairs nesting in your yard I would say your robin population is incredibly robust and I applaud you for creating a space that attracts prey and predator species alike. Given the vitriol you clearly feel for the crows you have attracted I don’t expect you will be moved by this reality and let nature take its course. If you want to manage your yard for individuals that’s your call; both robins and crows are doing very well and I see no harm in your efforts as long as they are within the law. I do urge you however, NOT to use cats. Cats are indiscriminate killers and will harm the biodiversity of your yard, not improve it. Best wishes,
I’m experiencing the exact same thing. A crow was attacking a baby Ren. I was so scared it flew to us as we were sitting on the porch. It had all ready ripped of one of its legs. I watched the parents fuss over the nest because it was in a flower pot on the porch. My husband put up nesting boxes and they filled up in no time. The crows just watch and pick off the baby birds as soon as they leave the nest. On three occasions while cleaning out the bird bath I’ve found the legs and feathers of baby birds. I used to like crows, now I think there like a gang of hoodlums. I love birds and the last thing I want to do is clean baby bird pieces from my birdbath.
Part of loving birds is accepting that some birds eat other birds, and if you dedicate yourself to watching nature you’re going to experience that. I just recently heard from a family that had been fondly watching a crow nest when one morning they awoke to a raccoon sitting in the nest-the babies all eaten. It’s tough to be a baby no matter who you are, and open cup nesters are especially vulnerable to the more conspicuous kinds of predation events that make this page. If people had eyes on all the nests in their yard, they would more deeply appreciate that rodents and snakes are more impactful nest predators. Which doesn’t make them the enemy either.
unfortunately your behavior to interact with the environment seems to provide a subsequently easier environment for crows to recognize patterns of activities and prey on them!
Try putting up multiple feeding spots and dense structures like bushes for smaller birds to nest in! Would be an interesting experiment/observation!
Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful blog! My eight year old son and I just started reading and listening to Gifts of the Crow and love it! Thank you for answering my question about the smaller songbirds. We live in Wallingford (Seattle) and we have a bird feeder in the front yard. We used to have a variety of bird visitors: chickadees, sparrows, robins, pigeons, flickers, stellar jays and even three beautiful waxwings (although the waxwings seemed to be plucking spiders from their webs and not interested in the feeder). We LOVE our crow friends. I was worried because since I’ve been feeding the crows more regularly, we haven’t seen hardly any smaller birds. I am glad it doesn’t have much to do with us feeding the crows and the crows presence. We don’t feed them a lot, just one fried egg yolk and a few unsalted Virginia peanuts. And an occasional bite of leftover salmon from Anthony’s or other seafood restaurant we go to. Do crows taste food like we do? Do they taste salty, sweet, spicy, etc? Thank you again!
For the most part, their tastes are similar to ours with the exception of spicy foods. While birds have the same receptor that in mammals detects spice, in birds it is insensitive. They can eat the hottest peppers in the world no problem!
Thank you so much!
Crows must be declared as pests and isolated from liveable environment.
Amen. I can’t believe the praise for these nasty pests. Will the author defend rats and cockroachs next?
Hi Realist! Remember, every comment goes through me for approval before it actually shows up on the blog, so you don’t need to @ me like you did in your second post. I’ll always see it!
Anyway to get you your question. Sure, in the right contexts! Did you know that are 56 species of rats? Most live in remote areas and some are even endangered like the giant kangaroo rat (go ahead, google it, it’s cute as a button.) Black/ship rats are of course a different story since their introduction into nearly all corners of the globe, and the scientific studies on their consequences, make clear they are among the worst threats to global biodiversity, particularly on islands. Which, PS, there’s really only one invasive species of crow, the house crow, and its global spread is nothing close to the black rat’s. BTW, did you know norway rats (the kind most typically used in labs) “laugh” or at least produce a very specific vocalization when tickled and will seek out future tickles?
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051959
They will also rescue trapped casemates just for the social points. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760221/
I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty damn interesting!
Ok on to cockroaches. Rather than being biodiversity threats, the thing cockroaches-well, let’s be specific here, American cockroaches-do is effectively squick people the heck out. Which I get. Turning on the bathroom lights in the middle of the night and having one dart in front of you is bound to give most people a fright. But it’s unfair to generalize all 5,000+ species of roach based on our attitudes of the American cockroach. The truth is, in their native habitats both rats and cockroaches are part of the biodiversity that make their ecological homes run-just like crows.
As far as me writing my own post? Heck no, that’s not my field of expertise! Speaking of which, thank you for getting me to write this post, I learned a ton more about roaches! Instead, I’ll stick to my corvids and doing all I can to disabuse people of the myths and alternative facts that surround them, hence this very blogpost! For the roaches and rats, I can leave that to the folks that know their stuff. If you want to learn more about rats check out @orderrodentia, @urbanevol or @rattus_mattus. For cockroaches I reccomend @lmcamargos, @lbycter @scibugs. Oh and you seriously have to read this article by @bittelmethis http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/i-am-officially-in-love-with-cockroaches-180960274/ it’s awesome!!!
My word strong talk..The only pests I come across are humans who go around labelling birds etc as pests THEN off to buy a chicken at the supermarket and enjoy it .Some one did their killing ..Eat an egg and think how healthy then look at the way the poor battery hen has been kept Videos galore .Please watch and then wonder who is the pest .Remember how you loathe the Corvid when you eat Turkey on Thanksgiving .
Hi. I’d be very interested to know if something I just heard is true…that British crows pick out the eyes of other birds. Is this so? Is it true?
Hi Doro, I can answer this question but first it would be nice if you could provide a little more context for this hearsay. Where and what exactly was the context in which this was said? That will help make sure I get at the root of what’s being asserted here. Thanks!
I don’t understand why my replies aren’t showing up now, but I did answer asking if you were being coy? I did provide the context – someone told me that crows were picking out the eyes of other birds, and I asked if it was true that crows do that. Am I not understanding your question?
Hi Doro, no I am not being coy. I’m just trying to figure out where this could have come from on behalf of the person who told it to you. For instance did they mean that crows just peck the eyes out and leave the bird blind but alive, akin to how Eleanora’s falcons pull the wings off living birds and store them so they can eat fresh meat later, or did they mean that they just do it for fun akin to dolphins hunting porpoise calves? Or maybe they meant that they’ve seen a crow pick out the eyes of an already dead bird. In any case, there’s no evidence whatsoever of the first two scenarios. The third is entirely possible though. With mammals, the eyes are most typically the first thing they go for because their beaks are not made for breaking the thick skin of something bigger than a rat. This is why they have such a bad reputation among sheep farmers. Eyes are accessible, nutritious soft tissue so once they pluck and consume the meat of a bird kill there’s no reason they wouldn’t fish out the eyes. The other possibility I can think of is that when I’ve seen crows go after small birds their strategy is to kill them by a blow to the head. It’s possible this person mistook a general interest in going after a bird’s head as a specific aim to peck their eyes.
Cheers,
Thanks for your response. I’ve never heard of falcons pulling the wings off living birds, and the image of it in my head is horrible. And I’ve never heard of dolphins hunting porpoise calves either – both being indications of my ignorance. I apologise. But you’re answer helps me to understand what you were looking for, and it’s along the same vein as what I was trying to establish in the original conversation about crows.
Here are a couple of things I was told: In my book all crows are nasty…. They attack small birds nests, and kill baby lambs/ When one of my blond boys was about 2 years old he was out with his Da and he was attacked by one of those, they were going for his eyes. Those critters are no fun/ in Fort McMurray in 1967-9 there was a report of ravens picking out the eyes of young wolves and waiting for them to die.
I’d never heard of such behaviour and none of the people who made the claims above responded to my request for info that I could check out independently. So when I found your site, I thought you might have the answer. I guess what you’re saying is that the reports are exaggerated – is that fair to say?
Well yes and no. They do attack birds nests-they just don’t do it at such a rate in your backyard that we see declines of songbird populations as a result. Everything eats baby birds, it’s sad to see but that’s why they lay so many eggs. They also do peck the eyes (and anus) of young lambs. That’s also a sad sight, but from a foraging perspective it’s a very a good strategy. Nature doesn’t design itself around our sensitivity nor do humans always abide by it. It’s not hard to find evidence of people doing truly heinous things to our food, despite the fact we are capable of holding ourselves accountable for it. The last two though are more exaggerated. Wolf pups are born in dens and do not emerge until they are hold enough to give the crows and ravens chase. I’m inclined to think that one is a exaggeration of the fact they do like to tease wolves by pulling their tails. Finally, in the summer time crows become very defensive around their nests and kids and will dive bomb people who get too close. Although they’ll swoop and occasionally peck the back of the head, they’re not going for the eyes-that’s too risky. A bird in the hand will go for the eyes but this is true of any bird with a long neck and powerful bill. I’ve handled caspian terns before and was surprised when it was over that I had made it with both my eyeballs.
Thanks for your response. Appreciated. I’m becoming increasingly interested in this topic. As I was trying to find an answer (before I found your site), I came across the following. Would you mind giving me your interpretation on them?
https://www.realagriculture.com/2015/07/livestock-predation-turns-ravenous/
http://barrie.ctvnews.ca/ravens-attack-and-kill-livestock-in-grey-bruce-1.2507458
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/2015/07/24/raven-attacks-on-calves-in-chatsworth
I don’t see any evidence to indicate if these are animals who have been taken from their mothers as often happens in the cattle industry, but I’d be interested to have your take on these. Many thanks in advance.
Look legit to me-eyes and anus are good signs of an avian scavenger. I’m not a rancher but from what I can tell domestic cows and ewes just aren’t biologically equipped to chase off looming ravens. Meaning, I don’t think it makes any difference if the young are with mothers or not, their mothers simply don’t do anything about it. I do wonder though, if wild bison and big horn have the same issues, or if because they are co-evolved with this species they are more equipped to watch for and respond to attempted predation events on calves by ravens. I’ll have to ask some of the big game biologists I know. Again though, I’m not a rancher. Perhaps domestic farm animals do try and protect their young from these kinds of attack but just aren’t very successful.
Hmmm…now I’m getting confused. My understanding of your earlier reply was that reports of them pecking out the eyes of live calves or lambs were exaggerated, allowing for the possibility of “down” calves or lambs being attacked. Your most recent reply seems to suggest that this is to be expected.
I’ve looked up some more info:
I’m not sure what gave you the impression that I thought this (meaning, specifically, pecking lamb’s eyes) was an exaggeration? I said explicitly that they do peck the eyes and anuses of lambs (and I’ll include now, calves). That they peck the eyes of other kinds of more dangerous critters (wolf pups, humans, etc.) is an exaggeration. Does that help? Maybe the confusion is that clarifying if you’re talking about ravens or crows is really important here. Ravens are much more powerful birds than crows so they are actually quiet capable of killing a young mammal under the right circumstance. Crows are not. You started by asking about crows, so most of my answers have been provided with respect to what crows do, not ravens. But it seems maybe now you’re more interested in raven behavior. The video above is of ravens. They could easily pull the eyes and peck to death a young lamb. This would be much more difficult for crows, who would be limited to the eyes and then waiting for it to die and be ripped open by something larger.
My mistake. I apologise. And yes, you’re right. As far as the crow/raven aspect goes each time I plug in “crow” I get feedback on either both crows and ravens or else just ravens, so I’m unsure if the information is applicable to both or not.
You may or may not be interested to know that my provincial department of natural resources said that they believe the claims of crows pecking out calves eyes are probably the result of poor animal husbandry. That weak or sickly youngsters may be left unattended, or without a cow to defend them, and since they’re weak, and crows are opportunists, they go after them.
Again, my apologies for getting your previous answer turned around. I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to help me get this figured out.
Hi Doro, yes that’s a common and understandable source of confusion. Not everything will apply to both but that’s just not always made clear, unfortunately. Fascinating that that’s what brings you to ask this question! I’d be very interest in any final report your office publishes on the topic. Animal husbandry issues are a big source of contention here in the states too, particularly as it relates to wolves and cattle/sheep. Range riding is a tough job, but I imagine it could be just as useful for preventing injuries from corvids as it is effective at stopping predation events by wolves.
Cheers
Ridiculous article, masquerade of a scientific paper. The crows are very vicious and work in gangs killing every other small birds, and chasing even bald eagles out of their area (I witnessed such chase in the Vancouver area for many times). The crows population should be kept in check.
I believe you mean a masquerade of scientific paperS, since the Madden report was a review of many independent publications.
I was just driving and hit a finch. Accidently of course, I stopped when I had the chance to see if he was still alive. Upon my arrival a crow grabbed it in it’s beak and flew away with it. I was pretty shocked and it lead me to this. Poor little birdie. 😦
Fabulous article and u have really given me ammunition for my argument to try and educate people who hate crows and Maggie’s! Thanks so much, and I feel much better about the new crows and Maggie’s in my garden…!
A cardinal built a nest on the tray of a bird feeder. We had to stop feeding birds because dogs ate overflow even with the catchers on the bottom. What I want to know is how to scare other birds away as to not disturb her nest. It’s right outside our patio door
Unfortunately there’s no scare for birds that wouldn’t also extend to cardinals. You’ll have to just crows your fingers for them!
I live beside an undeveloped piece of property in Seattle. Condos and major roads surround us. There are 2 crows that are comfortable hanging out on my balcony with me & my cat (for about 3yrs now) & the rest of the family hangs out in the trees and makes a ruckus…except durring nesting. Taluk will make an apperance if I call him and Dido will sometimes follow. This morning I saw Taluk chasing a small bird around my condo & into the trees. He was absolutely hunting this bird! I could see and hear him crashing through branches! He finally landed on my railing panting with beak wide open. So, Yes, Crows do hunt. They are not just scavengers or nest robbers. Crows are an ultimate survivor. I am lucky to observe 2 very special crows and their family dynamics.
great story. crows do seem to be hunters like cats are in urban areas. Furthermore, it seems like a great “exercise” to them – which may be why we don’t see active predation so often.
We have an abundance of sparrows, robins and other birds in and around our patio restaurant. Many of them nesting in the cedar hedge surrounding the building. The birdsong is chipper and lively most all day long but a today all of a sudden it turned frantic and angry. I went to see the cause and to my horror a crow had a sparrow down on the ground and was violently pecking it. Several other sparrows and robins were all trying to stop the crow. As I approached the crow took flight with the sparrow clenched in it’s beak. The other sparrows and robins tried to follow the crow but to no avail, it was quickly out of sight with it’s prey. I have never witnessed such a violent attack except one time by a hawk out at a farm property, and so I ended up here looking for an answer. Thank you for all the information and feedback. We don’t usually have crows on this property. They are quite abundant in the general area but seen mostly up on the main road. I hope our property is not a recent discovery for this particular crow as I hope not to witness this again. What are chances this is a one time event here?
Hi Kit, unfortunately I can’t give you the odds you might witness something like this again. Probably you won’t but it’s possible you will. As a frame of reference, I spend more time than most people watching crows and I’ve only seen active predation events 3 times.
On another note I’m curious if you found this episode more, less, or the same level of upsetting as you did with the hawk. I get the feeling that people find predation events between crows and prey more upsetting than raptors and prey, and I’m looking to explore this attitude further. Thanks!
Thanks. Yes your right it’s interesting that I was horrified by the crow event and not so much the hawk. I see crows all the time while driving, as they scavenge the roadside and with very impressive timing to hop away and avoid being hit by cars. I’ve always kind of admired crows for what I perceive as cleverness and for just being crows. But because I never saw them attack live prey like that it was the surprise and misconceptions I had that made it more upsetting. I understand better now but just the same I still hope the crow doesn’t return here for a meal!
Crows must die. They also seek garbage and drag it around from yard to yard. I’m tired of seeing nest after nest get robbed. They are a nuisance. Time to get the pellet gun and let crows know who runs this joint.
James, you’re angry I hear you. If you just came here to rage comment and leave then adios. But if you’re here out of a passion for wildlife then I have information that can help you respond more constructively. First, garbage in the yard is not a wildlife problem. It’s a person problem. Locking up garbage is possible, and really important for lots of animals. From bears to crows, putting more effort into keeping trash out of reach will reduce conflict. Doing this, of course, takes a momentous attitude shift because we haven’t been socialized to accept this as a normal way of existing with wildlife. But if biodiversity is important to us then that’s an attitude we need to work on. If that’s not the issue, you and your neighbors already do all you can to keep garbage locked up then good for you. Still not a wildlife problem. People litter and wild animals take advantage. Littering is a people problem, period.
Now for the nests. If you shoot the crows it will make you feel better. Like someone who runs the joint. It will not save the birds (and if someone catches you could land you with hefty fines since it’s illegal). The squirrels, snakes, cats, dogs, raccoons, mice, rats, etc will see to that. If you want to save birds, really make a sizeable dent in the additive number of birds that are killed each year, engage in lights out programs in your city. Start a neighborhood wide effort to make windows more visible with UV stickers. And above all, engage with your neighbors about outdoor cats. That will really make a difference to the smaller birds that share your space.
I just tried to save a little song sparrow from a crow attack. Many smaller birds were also trying to help. I ran over yelling and flapping my arms and it dropped its meal and was harrassed enough by the smaller birds to leave. The poor sparrow had been blinded in one eye and was totally in shock. I am so very sad I didn’t realize what was happening and get there faster. ugh! Next time I see a crow I may throw rocks at it 😦 I am sorry but I hate watching them kill baby bunnies and helpless birds! Get out of my neighborhood and leave us in peace. 😦
This has been a tough week for me. From crows to coyotes to bears, it’s been conversation after conversation where the sentiment is: if an animal kills another animal it has no place sharing our spaces and we must eliminate it. These attitudes are devastating to ecosystems and biodiversity. Wolves, for example, are “heartless, evil animals” because they hunt in packs. Really, this idea that wolves are cruel because they are pack hunters is a big reason they continue to be so persecuted (and in some places executed). It gets emotional for me too eventually. This idea that people just want bunnies (which, ironically, also eat baby birds) and small birds. Just prey species and no ecological complexity. It just makes me sad to see this attitude so pervasively this week. It makes me wonder if keeping sharks, bears, cougars leopards, venomous snakes, on this planet is a fight we may see meet a tragic end. Anyway, switching gears to your specific experience, from the sparrow’s perspective I truly urge you not to intervene. The chances you could save it are slim and if you simply put a stop to things after it’s been mortally wounded you’re just prolonging its passing and making that interim time tremendously more stressful (I promise you the sparrow will not sense your good intentions and will instead react with an intense freeze/stress response to your handling.) It’s hard to witness death, I know, but I promise it’s better for the bird to just let it happen. Then, use all that energy you have to help birds on a larger scale. Things like speaking to neighbors about outdoor cats, bird proofing your windows, etc. Its great you have so much passion, use it to address those things that we have the power to change, like how our actions as humans affect wild birds and other wildlife.
Cheers,
I know it is really upsetting to see helpless animals being killed and eaten by others AND if you really want to help birds on a larger scale, there’s so much we can do! The Audubon Society lists ten things we can do for birds here: http://www.audubon.org/magazine/march-april-2013/10-things-you-can-do-birds
We can work together to try to save and protect their natural habitats by eating lower on the food chain, using less plastic and keeping plastics and other pollutants out of the ocean, forgoing pesticides and buying organic products if possible, reducing our carbon footprints and keeping cats indoors. We built three outdoor cat patios (catios) and our cats love them.
Hi. If it’s any consolation, I really admired your controlled response yesterday to the pellet gun threat. You do a great job in educating people (myself included) on the pros and cons of crows and nature.
Baby birds and bunnies have two enemies that are MUCH worse than crows will ever be. While the crows kill those creatures to survive or feed their young, cats and man do not. Domesticated cats kill tens of thousands of birds and bunnies every year. Man – humans – have to be the worst species on the planet. There is no other species that does the ghastly things to animals or their homes than humans. Before we pass judgement on one creature for trying to survive another day, we need to take a close look at our own behaviour.
Who tosses plastic wrappers into waterways, plastic bags into oceans where creatures become trapped and drown? Humans. Who bulldozes the homes and young of innocent creatures (birds, rabbits, skunks, snakes, etc) to build housing that we buy and live in? Humans. Who uses pesticides and other poisons that both kill and contaminate the food supply of other creatures in the name of agriculture or gardening? Humans. Who lets their cat out to roam free and doesn’t want to believe that it kills birds, mice, rabbits, snakes and other species when it’s out of sight? Humans. The crows have a long way to go to conduct themselves as heartlessly and with such vulgarity as we do. No, it’s not nice to see a kill, but the victim quickly goes into shock and is no longer aware of its fate. Nature is merciful. Interfering means that a bird who would not have been supper, now will have to become supper to make up for the bird that was dropped, and died anyway.
Kaeli: Please don’t let yourself be discouraged. We need your input, and the crows need it even more. You are doing wonderful work with this educational site. I know you’ve helped many crows through your efforts. Don’t give up.
Thank you, Doro, I really appreciate your kind words.
You are perfectly correct! I wish I could edit my stupid comment and I apologize for being an idiot. I love all living things and understand the power of balance in the ecosystem. It does seems that some animals just have the worst of it. It was awful to see and I do wish that I had left it alone altogether as the bird died uselessly. Really stupid of me 😦
Wow, I was not really expecting that and I really appreciate that you wrote back (I think it’s the first time anyone ever has). I get it, it’s hard not to feel a little shaken up after witnessing something like that and it would be easy to feel like an injustice has occurred that needs to be remedied. Or at least vented about! I always tell people; feel those sad feelings. But then remember on the flip side is another baby bird that did eat and survive because of that event (the crow, or hawk or falcon, etc. baby). I’m at least glad you care for the birds at all, philamb since that’s the starting place we need more people to be!
I thought your readers might be interested in this. It is from Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s book Crow Planet, page 196. “Crows are normally believed to be notorious nest robbers, consuming both the eggs and nestlings of smaller songbirds, but John Marzluff’s research suggests the need for a nuanced reading of this prevalent crow mythology. In extensive studies involving artificial ground nests, shrub nests and canopy nests, Marzluff found no positive relationship between crow abundance and the rate of predation. Crows do prey on nests, he concluded, but they are just one of the nearly twenty potential nest predators, including large and small mammals, owls and hawks”.
In a tree-lined residential street of Berlin, Germany, I have built up a close acquaintance with several crow pairs (corvus cornix, hooded crows) over about 5 years. Their territories are stable, and most of them appeared well established and no longer young birds when I first met them. One pair only were obviously in their first mating year, another seemed already comparatively old, and now no longer appear to reproduce, however still hold their territory, assisted by an adult daughter for the last several years.
My closest acquaintances come to my fourth-floor window sill every day for food (meat, nuts, occasional fruit, cheese, egg) and water, and (while never abandoning due caution) are happy to eat out of my hand. Others fly down out of the trees to meet me on the street. Some residents complain, quoting the usual uninformed misperceptions. I am convinced that regular feeding (in small amounts) will never lead to these birds loosing their hunting/foraging skills. Have observed the swift ‘murder’ of a young flying songbird and the efficient dispatching of a large mouse. However the quarter is still well populated with all the common smaller species found in the suburbs here – including nuthatch, sparrow, robin, tree-creeper, blackbirds, black-caps, jays, magpies, striped woodpeckers, a nightingale or two etc.
The crows generally show extreme caution in their daily living, keeping a low profile as far as possible, but are still strongly disliked by many humans, which they appear to realise. On the other hand, it is possible to make eye contact and establish an initial ‘social connection’ with them very quickly, with the help of food of course. Building trust and getting closer can take much longer, but is for me immensely rewarding, as one comes to observe individual behaviours and characters, the influence of the environment and the season on these, and eventually establish the nearest thing to a ‘friendship’ that one can have with a ‘wild’ creature. I attribute this to their intelligence and adaptivity, and probably also to a corvid culture established over thousands of years, whereby observing and following other animals, including us, has proved profitable. As it was in their interest to understand and predict our behaviour, they have become adept at this, and have no difficulty communicating with us if the occasion demands.
I have no idea why it is considered amazing that all crows can recognize individual humans. Slightly embarrassing however that most humans can’t recognize individual crows …
Thanks for your blog, always enjoy reading the posts!
@corvidresearch, will your next post be in praise of rats and cockroaches?
Well MY next post is to acknowledge the intelligence and adaptability of rats and cockroaches. I will further acknowledge that neither rats nor cockroaches do the deliberate harm to other species, or the planet, that humans do. Look at thyself first before ye find fault with others.
Hi Doro, Realist posited this question in serval threads, but FYI I did respond. Scroll up on this post if you want to find it 🙂
*****I make my point toward the end, but this is my background on crows.
Simply, I appreciated crows when they were more rare… even their fairly squabbly sounds. I appreciated their stalwart flapping, “honestly” working their way across the sky. I still do love them in the desert, probably ravens… solo, in pairs, or at times a bunch of them playing in the winds.
I just moved back home after 8 years of more city life. There are now groups of 20+ crow in the mornings and evenings. During the day they hang around haggling over whatever, solo or in groups of 3-5.
My appreciation for them is past tense. They take over the sound in the neighborhood. Their volume and franticness demand attention. My thoughts have been more than aesthetic.
From your article, I admit I must check my thoughts about how crow affect other birds locally. Until your article, it was easy to think that a large crow group would eat a large amount of local birds. We’ll see. I realize I must pay attention objectively, in order to get a good, though still very subjective sense of the birdlife here compared to how it was pre-crow. I’m going to check with local bird-watchers to see what they’ve observed re songbird population here.
1. ***** However much there are other active predators of local birds, this particular predator population has boomed. If there was a balance before, it is out of balance now. It has to be, unless there are many fewer cats, rodents, hawks, etc. Could it not easily be that as the greater San Diego region’s population has boomed and the added crow are having to spread out? “Go West, young crow, go West!” Call it too much of a good thing or a bad thing, it’s too much. Or better, don’t call it good or bad, but… just so. However it’s called, this situation is not neutral.
2. **** What is your opinion of this product:? Just before finding your article and the great conversations in this thread, I found an ad for a CD that offers a sound that drives crow from an area. I have access to speakers that can emanate sound in a very tightly focused area, kind of like a sound hose. That way it won’t disturb neighbors, much, and I can just hassle them until they move on to someone else’s neighborhood and, probably, birds. I could also put on my camo, and plug a few with a shiny pellet gun, but that has its risks.
3. **** I’ve very much appreciated your even hand with this thread… very much. I wonder, what could you and science offer people like us who don’t want crow in our neighborhoods and also don’t want to kill them?
Again, thank you for launching this valuable conversation and thanks to people who post here.
Hi Raif, I’m glad you’ve found this article and the conversations happening here helpful. The short version of your story is that crows come with development and certain other kinds of birds will leave with it. In that case it can be difficult to parse causation with correlation, which is why studies and reviews like these are so vital to really understanding what’s going on. As far as your CD, I did a quick google search and everything that popped up looked pretty bogus to me. Claims like “it works on all species of corvid” and “drives crows away but not songbirds” tell me there’s not a very good handle on the basic biology of these animals by the people making them. Plus, if it was that effective that’s what cities and airports would use…but they don’t. The best deterrents are either falconry abatement methods, or a multifaceted approach using a combination of things, including noise. As for my other advice, I assume if you’ve read through the thread you’re already very familiar. The more shrubby and “wild” you can make your property the more attractive you make it to all kinds of wildlife. Crow like grass, garbage and a few trees. Unless we can begin to adopt a cultural norm moving away from this classic American aesthetic, we will need accept the company of our like-minded avian neighbors.
Cheers,
Thanks for the continued conversation. Yes, as in so many occurrences in our lives… causation vs correlation? I could possibly do what it takes to like them. I was really looking forward to peanut-training Scrub Jays as I did so thoroughly at my previous house. Maybe I fiddle with the crows…?
Yes, the CD-sounds seemed a little sketchy. I might just try it and see if there’s any reaction at all. Who knows? If I do, I’ll report back.
This shift is part of a longer arc of life, death, and aesthetics – as you say.
-Off to go check out some Heckle & Jeckle cartoons to pick up some pointers… Thanks again.
Hi Raif one last suggestion…and I promise this isn’t a shameless plug…but you should consider following the blog. Given your outlook I think you would find the articles and ensuing comments worth your time. Even if you just pursued the other existing articles’ comment sections. There are other people who arrived here after many years of hating crows. You may find their stories relatable or interesting.
Cheers,
Kaeli
How could anyone enjoy a crow with that obnoxious “Caw! Caw!”
We have lived in our home on a beautiful river in N Florida for 22 yrs. We have enjoyed many different birds, but
suddenly a few weeks ago the crows moved in
and every other bird seems to have left. Totally
quiet, no bird song to wake up to in the morning. During the day, I enjoyed listening to the songbirds, since the crows moved in, total silence, unless they start up their cawing.
We have owls, hawks, eagles, osprey, many water birds, woodpeckers, cardinals, robins, and many other birds. I will also add we have plenty of squirrels,& raccoons, We even have snakes. We have had our birds throughout all this. Until the evil crows showed up.
I would like to see them try to get an osprey hatchling from it’s nest. The ospreys are aggressive and have razor sharp talons.
I believe they would rip those crows to pieces
Is it possible the birds are still here and are just being quiet?
Is it possible the crows are passing through?
Why is it against the law to kill a crow? Are they endangered? Why do some people associate crows with evil and death?
Is
Hi again, Rebecca. I responded to your other comment as well but let me address a few things in this one. First, let’s start by checking our language. If you’re coming at this from a viewpoint that crows are “evil” we’re not going to get anywhere (which, maybe you have no desire to anyway, but you asked questions so I’ll provide answers). I don’t say that because I need you to like crows or be open to liking them. I say that because your word choice implies that you’ve already attributed an moral lens to what you’re observing. Crows aren’t evil or malicious because those things require morality. A crow isn’t anymore evil for killing a smaller bird that a wolf is when it kills your dog, or a snake for biting you, or flicker for drilling a hole in your siding. They’re all just exercising normal parts of their behavior in ways that happen to really hurt/irritate/infuriate us. But they do them without malice and that’s really important to recognize because it removes the adversarial feeling we might otherwise have and makes it easier to recognize the biology driving the behavior.
Ok that aside let’s look at your situation. That WOULD be really frustrating. But let’s think about this. Crows are opportunistic hunters. Most of what they eat is insects and garbage. From your description your smaller birds have survived (as they should) living among both specialized predators like raptors and snakes and other opportunistic predators like squirrels and raccoons but have somehow not survived an animal that hunts for less than 2% of its diet. Does that make sense? Especially since some of those predators you listed also hunt crows? How could crows be killing more birds than the accipiters (bird eating hawks) you’ve already shared your space with? Biologically that seems really strange, especially given the concept of compensatory mortality and the fact that some of the birds you listed as now missing (like adult waterbirds) are not ones that would be prey to crows.
Now, what may be happening is some other change to your system that is both attracting crows and driving out other species. Development is often the culprit here. You may also be observing a normal seasonal change that, complimented with more crows than normal, is making you detect absences that you normally don’t.
As for your other questions. It’s illegal to kill crows because they are part of the migratory bird treaty act like all native songbirds. Our continental crows are not endangered but, fortunately, that’s not a requirement for being on that list. Otherwise there would be nothing to stop people from killing all sorts of bird willy nilly. There are, however, some very endangered species of crow. The Hawaiian crow is one of the most endangered animals on the planet with only about 100 individuals left. Despite their cultural significance to the Hawaiian people, their role in forest regeneration, and their unique biology (they make tools!) they are nearly extinct in part because so many hunters shot them so they couldn’t alarm call and scare off the feral pigs they were hunting. Can you at least imagine given that story that it’s a slippery slope when people start deciding what animals get to live or die based on our own needs and perspectives? The ecological role of the Hawaiian crow and the (I assume) fish crows you are dealing with are not the same, so I’m not trying to create an equivalency here, I’m just hoping you’ll consider how things like this get really dicey.
As for your last question. That’s a really fascinating topic that is hard to summarize but probably the easiest way is: crows would eat dead/dying people after battle and during mass disease related die offs (i.e the plague.) In western cultures we don’t like seeing our dead consumed by other animals, so there’s a really strong aversion to animals that engage in this behavior. I’m glad you recognized that that’s not a ubiquitous attitude though. In some cultures it’s actually part of the funeral rite to have bodies (or representations of bodies/souls) consumed by crows and other animals. Humans are a fickle species.
Let me know if you have other questions.
I say “where there is smoke there is fire.”
When people tell you consistently the crows
drive away their songbirds, I believe the crows
do. You can make your data prove anything
you want. I know, I haven’t heard the first
songbird since the crows, came to our street.
I don’t know if the crows killed the songbirds,
or they ran away. Calling crows a songbird is
a stretch.
I can’t imagine anyone being so enamored over crows. We we blessed to watch a pair of
Osprey nest and raise their little one 2 years in
a row, when the house next door was vacant
and the Osprey built their nest on the end of the vacant house pier. I could see the babies
being fed with my binoculars. Then the mother
flies to get a piece of Spanish Moss, evidently
there was a spot that needed more padding.
Then she spread her large wing span over them. I guess it was nap time. We watched them learn to fly. We fell in love with them and
even gave them names.
Saying “you can make your data prove anything you want” is a misunderstanding of the way the scientific process works. That kind of mistrust is why so many remain unconvinced that climate change is real despite the overwhelming evidence. If you understand climate change but see your logic here as being different from climate deniers I can tell you it’s not. You’re rejecting evidence because it doesn’t suit your personal experience.
As far as calling them songbirds-that designation comes from their physiology not their size, diet, or vocal repertoire. There’s no stretch there, just evolution.
If you read through the comments you may begin to understand why people adore them. Or not, which is ok too. You don’t need to like crows. But mistrusting science IS an issue that deeply impacts everyone and is something you should open yourself to remedying.
I would never want to see any animal become extinct, and every effort should be made to protect an endangered species. That is heartbreaking to me and it sounds like people are breaking the law. And perhaps not enough effort is being made to enforce the law in Hawaii?
Are you aware there is a season for hunting crows in Florida?
Since they are migratory it is regulated by the Federal govt. and not by Florida.
(Florida Sportsman Feb 2016)
I don’t know if there is a crow season in other states.
I absolutely do believe in Science. My daughter in law is a Neuro Scientist with a PhD from an Ivy League School. I also worked in the medical field for 25 years holding a professional license. This is a familiar phrase: “MORE STUDIES ARE NEEDED”
About your data on crows, I don’t know if I trust the numbers. It is not arrived in a stable, controlled setting like a lab.
You are not an impartial observer.
I believe in Science, yet I am not completely gullible. I have seen studies abandoned because there was a bias that was not anticipated at the beginning.
And horrible things have been done in the name of Science, within the last 100 years
Thanks for answering my questions. It had occurred to me that perhaps this was seasonal and I had not noticed it before. The Osprey may have already
migrated. I really don’t remember a
time of no bird song.
You are very patient with people who comment who don’t agree with you.
I read an autobiography several years ago, a young woman wrote about her childhood, her parent were organic farmers in Maine. Her sister died in a drowning accident in a pond on the farm.
She noted that one of the farm workers had said there had been a crow about the farm that summer before the accident. Would that have been unusual
for a crow to be alone without other crows?
I suppose some people still think
them a bad omen. I don’t know why she
decided to put that comment in her book.
Hi Rebecca, yes there are seasons in every state though some states have a lot more participation than others.
Your criticism of wildlife science is not an unusual one. Folks in field like physics, molecular biology etc, sometimes refer to things like animal behavior or wildlife science as “soft sciences” (though that attitude has changed a lot) for the very reason you state: it’s not in a lab and we can’t control everything. But of course if that was our criteria we could never learn much about wild animals in the wild!
People can never be completely impartial observers (though I want to be clear: the data I reported in this article are from many different studies none of which were conducted by me) but that is why large sample sizes, as carefully controlled field experiments as possible, and the peer review process are so important. They act as the checks on the issues you describe.
It’s always better to have more data but, as I said, the finding that crows largely do not affect local songbird populations is based on many different studies conducted by many different scientists.
As for your lone crow story. Generally they are in a flock or with their mate but it wouldn’t be that unusual to see a crow by itself. But because crows have been part of human culture since basically forever, our urge to read symbolism in their presence/activity is strong and runs deep. Goes to show what powerful animals they are in our lives right? You wouldn’t have seen the same inclusion if they had seen a robin or a blue jay instead!
This site has softened my perception of the crow as nuisance. However, you stating that it is illegal to hunt crows is simply inaccurate.
They have a hunting season in NY, Sept. 1 – Mar. 31
Hi Whitecollarredneck, can you tell me where you saw the claim you are describing? I am well aware that there are legal hunting seasons and in fact have a post dedicated to describing the legal (and illegal) forms of “take” with respect to crows. I even acknowledge that “yes there are seasons in every state though some states have a lot more participation than others” in the very thread you are responding to. Thanks!
“what I suspect is happening when residents ask me why they see fewer birds and if crows are to blame is that crows often follow urban development and it’s possible that what these residents are experiencing is a change in species diversity as habitats are disrupted and modified to make way for new human settlements.”
I disagree. Many species have proved to adapt remarkably well to human habitation and even prefer it. Eagles, for example, if given a choice will nest on a telephone pole rather than a cliff. Also, human development isn’t necessarily crowding out existing species but attracting new ones. Even migrating birds are making permanent homes on former winter-only feeding grounds. While you can argue that human development is altering how other species interact with each other, often coexisting against their natures, the developments are not so much shrinking animal habitats as much as expanding it.
Mark, you bring up a valid point, though I did address at the end of the article Yes, suburban areas can be higher in avian biodiversity than other kids of discrete habitat like old growth (and yes, even when they include crows, because again…point of the article). And yes, some birds like juncos, chickadees, beweick’s wrens etc. (I’m on the west coast so obviously a WC slant here) are what we would call urban adapters, and still others, like crows, we would call urban exploiters. These birds flourish because they tolerate disturbance relatively well. Couple that with rich resources offered by warmer urban temperatures, supplemental feeding, and ornamental plants that bloom/produce all year long, and you have a recipe for impressively diverse suburban areas. Obviously there’s work we can do to make it more or less so and I encourage people to do their homework to figure out how they can make their spaces even more wildlife friendly. So, I hope it’s clear that I recognize and agree with the science behind what you’re saying. To return to my post though, I was offering it more in the context of as development is happening. The transition period is hard on most any bird species, apart from crows because they LOVE construction projects. Once suburbia is established though it’s a different story as you point out for many birds, though not all. Pacific wrens, for example, do not tolerate disturbance. They will retreat into ever shrinking wildland habitats. So it’s important to recognize that while many species flourish, some unequivocally perish in suburbia and that’s a balance we need to strike. The other caveat I want to point out is that there’s a reason you used birds as your example. This trend does not hold up when we look at reptiles, amphibians, or mammals. Though some certainly do ok, even pretty great, on the whole we do not see the ‘subirdia’ trend with respect to those taxa. Great point-thanks for bringing it up!
Recent studies in German cities show increased population of crow (and some raven) breeding pairs over several decades; however at some point the numbers stabilize. In outer suburbs the increase has ended, in the inner city it continues. Rural environments in contrast show a widespread and major decline in corvid populations, especially of magpies.
Points to note are that the impact of crow numbers or predation on other songbird populations is minor compared to the effect of environmental changes caused by human development. The German Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union notes, specifically, NO negative impact of increased crow populations on common songbirds. What suffers in the longer term – as you indicated – is species diversity, as adaptors will survive where specialists can not.
Also: – it may look as if corvids are doing fine in our cities, but their nourishment and breeding situation is actually far worse than it would be in the countryside where they would prefer to live. Human rubbish is not a good substitute for the insects, grain, etc which they require. In rural environments about half of the brood will be raised to adulthood. In urban surroundings on average not much above one nestling per brood-pair will be raised successfully. Of these, only a minority lives more than a year. Crippled feet, leukism and other results of poor nourishment or environmental poisons are far more common in urban than in rural crows.
Occasional media hysteria fails to convince that attacks on humans by breeding crows could be considered a problem. The Berlin Senate registers between one and three complaints of crow attacks annually.
http://www.berlin.de/senuvk/natur_gruen/naturschutz/artenschutz/de/freiland/problemarten.shtml
https://berlin.nabu.de/tiere-und-pflanzen/voegel/kraehenvoegel/
Over the past years I have noticed a particular intersection in our neighborhood where I would see crows eating something in the middle of the road. On closer inspection I saw that there were smashed eggs. This scene repeated itself over and over, at first I thought. is someone dumping eggs to feed the crows/ Then in it dawned on me. The crows are raiding area songbird nests,, carrying the eggs to the spot in the intersection and dropping them then eating them. Now I have noticed this same murder of crows this spring scouting new nesting songbirds and actually saw one the other day grab a fledgling dove chick , take it to a roof and eat it there. Between feral cats and these crows the neighborhood birds do not stand a chance.
Hi Bud I’m happy to work with you on the part of your concern that’s supported by science: feral cats are a serious threat to wildlife. Is there a cat colony being supported nearby?
We have a crow that has taken to the habit of hunting our songbirds and has been catching and feeding on our sparrows, house and American finches.
This crow has been catching and eating at least one per day that we are aware of. There may be more that we do not know of. This behaviour is new in our yard this year. But we are concerned how quickly this has become a habit
Hi Rodney, my apologies I thought I had already responded to you about this. Can you give me more information? How do you know it’s the same crow every kill? How do you know they’re being killed by crows? Do you watch it while it’s happening like at a bird feeder? That would be an unusually high level of predation for an individual so I’m try5ing to piece together what might be going on.
This crow is the only crow it has exhibited a routine behaviour. First landing on the roof, then the fence, then into the yard. It pretends to be picking away at the grass and awaits for the finches and chickadees to return. Then it attacks, it is successful approx 25% of its attempts. Once it has a bird it takes it to the roof and plucks it, then flies off with its meal. We do have a hawk in the neighbourhood. I am wondering if the crow has perhaps learned this from the Hawk. None the less I would find it odd to have more than one crow. Follow the same steps.
I chase the crow out but it always returns a few minutes later. I finally resort to bringing the feeders inside so the song birds stay away until I know the crow has moved on for that day. It is a very large crow. I do not think it is a raven as they tend to stay in the forest around here
I wish I could capture video as this crow has also attacked seagulls and we witnessed it going after a Bald Eagle and chased the eagle away.
Smaller songbird population drops within weeks and not attributable to changes in habitat. Crow murders spread out from their roost over a wide area. I’ve seen the crows hunt as pairs or singles by flying close to a nest to get a “protection” response and a fight ensues. Works well with aggressive protectors such as robins and stellar’s Jays. The pair seems to ‘work’ the same area and return to their roost at night.
Hi Brain, can you clarify what you mean when you say “drops within weeks?” Weeks since what? In most parts of the country roosts are something that happen nightly, year round, so I’m not sure what kind of seasonal change you are referencing. And yes, pairs of crows do spread out far from the roost because they are returning to their individual territories. You can pack many thousands of crows into a single roost but those territory holders each have an at minimum 25km home range they return to during the day. It’s not that they are just “working” an area, they live there permanently, just like the jays and robins. Their nests are around someplace too, being stalked by their own predators. And yes I know the exact behavior you’re describing. When I did research on horned larks in Oregon we had Norther Harriers that did the same thing. It was devastatingly effective, I was convinced we wouldn’t have a single fledged nest the entire season. Not an unusual strategy across many kinds of nest hunters be they avian, mammalian, or other. And yeah the robins and steller’s jays pay a price for their easy tells, but that’s why they can renest so frequently.
The crows in my area have driven off the hawks. They stake out an area in my yard and repeatedly kill birds (adults, not just fledglings). They also kill and eat lizards every day in my birdbath. I noticed a very, very sharp decline of birds during so-called nesting season. The flock of crows is infinitely more organized and consistent about killing off wildlife in my area than the hawks. The hawks are immediately driven off by those same crows. They are brutal. Where I used to live, stray cats were the major issue. But where I live now, the cats don’t survive outdoors (become food for coyotes) and the only thing that can account for the dozens of dead songbirds I have found in my yard is the crows. They stake out watch areas and then attack. Anybody know how I can discourage them? I’m about ready to get out a BB-gun and take aim (and yes, I know that’s illegal but the problem is that severe — all fledglings killed off, and many adults along with other small critters).
Nice article, but nonetheless I hate crows! I have nearly 100 in my yard just destroying the wonderful little bird sanctuary I once had. My favorite songbirds have disappeared. There is snow on the ground so I continue to feed the birds spending way too much time chasing off crows. I have seen them on a nest just eating the babies as frantic parents flew overhead, and they too far up for me to throw rocks. I have become a fanatic crow hater! I see nothing desirable in them at all. All I want to know is how can I get rid of them? I would appreciate any suggestions. I am going to start feeding safflower seed as I understand crows are not fond of it. But these monsters seem to eat anything. Come summer I will stop feeding altogether, tapering off. I am feeling that feeding birds just brings on the bully birds. I will plant sunflowers and things like Rocky Mountain Bee plant instead. Hummingbirds like the flowers, as do bees and butterflies, and the small birds then eat the seeds. But somehow I have to get ALL the crows out of my neighborhood! If I could rid myself of crows I could start feeding birds again. I honestly do not believe these studies as they totally contradict what I have seen in my own yard. I think crows are a real threat to American songbirds.
Hi Bette. I appreciate your frustration and am glad you are passionate about birds. I don’t imagine you care to hear from me further, however, so I won’t bother. I will simply say that you might reflect on your comments about large studies being wrong because they contradict your personal experience the next time you scoff (which, given your love of birds, you presumably do) when someone like Jim Inhofe brings a snowball to the senate floor and mocks climate science.
Are you saying the large studies include territory the size of a yard with populations of 100 crows? Studies study just what they study, and nothing more. There are always exceptions. If 25 or even 5 crow took up residency in my yard that would naturally change many things including the lives of animals they eat. Many of those animals are other smaller birds.
Are there any studies that focused on yard sized territory, with numbers of 5, 25, or 100?
Writing this I wonder if the observation of 100 in the yard is accurate. But again, just five percent of that will have an effect on that sized territory.
Hi Ralph. There’s a lot to unpack in the “are the any studies that focused on a yard on a yard side territory with numbers of 5, 25, or 100 crows” so let’s start with what a territory is. A territory is an area of land that is actively defended by a single breeding pair of crows and potentially members of their family or unrelated helpers. How big the average territory is will vary regionally but as a frame of reference, in Seattle, where territories are extremely small, the average size is about one square block. So while someone’s yard may be encompassed within a breeding pair’s territory, that pair or family has a larger range which they occupy and defend from other crows. So saying “a yard sized territory” is meaningless. It would be like describing a bathroom as someone’s home. Sure the bathroom is part of their house, but the space they occupy and defend from others is at the very least larger and potentially /much/ larger depending on their income bracket. As far the number of crows on a single territory on the east coast it’s about 3.5 and on the west coast it’s less because helpers are rare. It’s possible to have as many as 15 individuals on a territory, but this is extremely rare overall. We haven’t even documented that in WA as far as I know. So there’s no such thing as a /territory/ of American crows that has 25 or 100 individuals on it. Now that doesn’t mean your yard couldn’t host a fork ton of crows depending on where you live and the size of your yard. For example maybe your “yard” includes the McDonalds dumpster or maybe it’s 15 acres of land. In those situations you could either have a communal area of crows that are exploiting a limitless resource or, you have enough space that you can support multiple territories, but those are atypical circumstances for most people. So hopefully that clarifies what a territory is and average abundance across different kinds of space. But okay, let’s pretend you didn’t use the word territory and just meant “are there studies that model the effect of varying numbers of crows on the abundance of other song birds by yard” the answer to that question is no, because that question tells you nothing about what’s happening at a population level, which if you’re interested in conservation is the level you’re concerned with. Now, if you’re interesting in determining what yard size or features that best protect birds against nest predators then sure, that kind of model would be really helpful and maybe someone should do that study. But if you’re interested in more general questions like “do crows reduce the diversity or number of suburban songbirds” then you don’t care about individual yards, you care about spatial scales that will be more broadly representative. So for example, a 2007 study surveyed plots at the 1 km2 scale. At this scale, you would encompass multiple crow territories some of which may two occupants, others may have 10 etc. Operating at this scale, in the end you have the statistical power (assuming you surveyed enough 1 km2 plots) to make an inference at the population level at what the presence of crows has on the breeding success of whatever other birds you surveyed were. All of this is to clarify that the question here is not “is Bette’s experience real”, it may be very real and yeah, if you have 20 crows in your yard everyday, your Steller’s jays probably won’t fledge. The question is “is Bette’s experience representative of what’s going on at the population level” and scientific consensus so far is that the answer is no because by and large most people have waaaaay fewer crows that visit their property and because we’ve shown over and over again that removing crows does not have a meaningful effect on the reproductive success of other birds. Does that help?
PS, the next time I teach a wildlife field techniques course my opening slide is going to be “studies study just what they study” -Ralph Chaney
Hi CR ->
Ha, yes as I wrote that I had to double check to make sure it really meant something fairly accurate. 🙂
Thank you for the inviting and persistent manner with which you wrangle this blog…
-Ralph
Hi! Thank you for your reply, and………… I spent a good portion of the day that I wrote online learning about ravens and crows. My god! I am now in love with them. I am sure they don’t love me as I have chased them away from my bird feeders. But now that I realize their intelligence I made a deal with them. I feed my small birds close to the house and will chase the ravens/crows, not sure which I have, from that area. And I feed small seeds. But in the area away from my house I put out the regular seed plus peanuts and dry dog food. It took them exactly one day to figure out the arrangement. I have 50 or more in the front of my yard, and, after chasing them from the small bird area, they got the arrangement and stopped coming near the house where I feed the small birds. I very much look forward to getting to know them better and hope they can learn to trust me after my poor performance in originally chasing them off.
Hi Bette, I wish you hadn’t deleted your comments! I think the transition from “kill all the crows” to “wow crows are pretty neat and I can now see a path towards loving the small birds and the crows in my yard” is a really powerful one for people to see. I hope you come back and tell us more about what you learned (and where; I’d really love to know if anything on this site helped) that helped tipped the scales for you. Keep up the fight with making your yard a safe space for all the birds.
What a fabulous outcome. Bravo!
Right? I actually cried. Where else on the internet do people ever change their minds and admit it? But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. We all understand why if you love birds and wildlife, it’s not long until you discover the joys of appreciating corvids. Still, Bette probably has no idea just how much her turnaround meant to me. Cheers to you, Bette.
Hi, again! I responded before I noticed Ralph Chaney’s post. For clarification, my yard in a half acre in a very small village in northern New Mexico surrounded by lots of acreage where alfalfa is grown and cattle are raised, and less than a quarter of a mile from my house is BLM land where I hike. We have a dump here where we take our garbage about 7 miles down the road and the crows/ravens strew the garbage around looking for food the minute the attendant leaves. Also, a neighbor about 5 miles from me feeds the crows/ravens. A small river runs through the village, so, all in all, the birds have a nice setup and we have gotten many gorgeous birds. We had a late snow storm one year and I put halved orange slices on posts for the Western tanagers. I counted 20 in my yard; although none last year. I just don’t want the populations of the other birds decimated. This is a unique area in that it is so supportive of bird life.
Well, I still say that I’ll take crows any day, over cats or man. As I’ve said before, while the crows kill those creatures to survive or feed their young, cats and man do not. Domesticated cats kill tens of thousands of birds every year. Man – humans – have to be the worst species on the planet. There is no other species that does the ghastly things to animals or their homes that humans do. Before we pass judgement on a creature for trying to survive another day, we need to take a closer look at our own behaviour. There. I’ve said it again.
I love crows, always have – they are true survivors and have adapted to the changes wonderfully well. Thank you for such an interesting insight into more knowledge if our lovely crows.
I liked your article and understand crow fandom AND I’ve recently watched a few regular crows in my yard feast on a baby rabbit and pinned down a striker. Striker got away but the bunny was sure as dead when it stop screaming and the crow took off with it. These recent observations led me here to your blog and I wanted to share. I’ve now became very wary of my new neighborhood predators and miss the Cooper’s hawks that used to nest by my home in North Bothell/North Creek. Look forward to learning more.
Sorry, you are wrong crows do reduce song birds.I have always had so many song birds around my home building nests on the pergola with many babies that took their first flight, watching mom feed them in the trees. Then Crows built a large nest in a huge tree behind my home. Shortly after, the song birds that had built their nests and had their babies, I watched them lose them to the crows. The crows left their nest in the tree and I hoped they would never nest there again. The song birds never built nests in my yard anymore.and never returned the next year, so I put up a bird house in the same place the small birds had their open nests hoping they might return to nest. They never returned. I didn’t I have a nest for 5 years. Then a pair of beautiful little song birds decided to build a nest in my bird house. I was thrilled. Watching them come back and forth to make a home. Then yesterday the first fledgling was sitting outside on my table just looking around. Mom came and feed a worm. I gave the birds some privacy so they would not be bothered. Then all of a sudden I hear the song birds making all kinds of noise. I look out the window to see the baby bird in the crows mouth with the song birds in pursuit. It broke my heart. I know there are more babies in the bird house and feel there will be no protection from the crows as they stake out my yard, so you are wrong about what you say. That baby saw the world for 10 minutes
Hi Sally, I’m sorry to hear that. I know it’s hard. A (robin for example since you weren’t specific) pair’s repeated loss of their clutch though is not the same as the population of robins declining as a result of depredation. If animal populations were in decline every time one of them got eaten, well, it would be a very different world than the one we live in. So yes, for your pair of songbird the crows did cause a decline in their nesting success. But that one data point does not by itself make a population level trend, and it’s that trend we look to to determine sources of decline. And the data doesn’t support a trend that the presence of crows results in population level declines for most other birds, even though, yes, they eat their share of babies over the spring and summer. Hopefully that makes sense, not that it helps combat the frustration of rooting for a nest pair and seeing them get depredated.
So, for twenty-five years we had what was probably (or became) a natural balance of songbirds, other birds and predators. X number of birds killed. X number living. Only an occasional crow or two… or passing gang.
Within a couple of years span, we now have very many crows. Day in – day out. There is now (lots) more predation on songbirds. Many more predators than two years before. There was some kind of balance, then we add the crows’ fair share of predation.
To keep the same number of living songbirds does that mean there are more songbirds being born here each season? How can that happen with more predation?
Or, have the songbirds moved to another near-enough and safe-enough place so that they are still alive and counted in population trends, but they just don’t live here now?
Wondering how the trend studies work and/or how this can still balance out…
Thank you,
Ralph
Hi Ralph there are a couple ways this can shake out. First is that lost of predators doesn’t automatically equal lots of predation. That was observed in a study in Washington that found suburban areas had the highest density of predators AND the highest density and biodiversity and reproductive success among small songbirds. The second factor is what’s called compensatory mortality, which I refer to in the article. Basically if there is a shared resource, you can have additional players using that resources without it increasing the overall amount that resource is being used. To achieve this the other (original) players using that resource replace that amount they would normally take from somewhere else. The last common scenario is yes, depending on the scale at which you are surveying, it’s possible to have refugia areas that harbor large quantities of particular species even if they’re less present in other parts of the survey area. Hope that helps clarify!
maybe you could observe what types of songbirds are in your area and place a thick bushed shrub in your garden as evolution is such that nature provides certain objects that help certain species to reinvent thus procreate . . Crows are opportunistic and smart predators and your building a house for the small birds just makes it easy for nestlings to be poached aka “id-ed”
my 2 cents.
best
Tay
I am new to this blog and want to thank you for all this wonderful information. I recently saw there was a huge flock of birds in a parking lot in Texas. What would make them do that? Is this common?
Hi Roberta. The flock of birds in Texas are grackles, and yes this is a common and normal part of grackle behavior. The video is being shared as if it was recently taken but it’s actually from the fall, when large grackle roosts in grocery store parking lots are a regular part of Texas life!
Hello, Found your blog looking for information after listening to friends rail against bird feeders for attracting crows, very informative. Just a short anecdote, the other day I heard a persistent ruckus outside our house and went to the basement where in a window well there was juvenile crow who could not fly vertically enough to get out and was getting quite fatigued and a bit beat up. I put a ladder in the well and it took that bird all of 20 seconds to figure out how to use the rungs to get out, just seemed so intelligent, it’s parents were on the eve of the house next door watching very attentively, it was fun being of assistance.
I primarily wanted write to commend you for the overall tone (as well as the quality of information) of your replies. I appreciate your ability to acknowledge peoples (often pretty irrational and misguided) emotionally driven comments and then proceeding to calmly and dispassionately correct their misperceptions. I find your ability to do this consistently over the course of several years almost remarkable in this day and age of hyper emotional polemics. Thank you, keep it up.
Thanks Dave, that’s a lovely compliment 🙂
I agree, fully, with Dave.
A very informative piece that I’m obliged to agree with now, as I sit out back watching blue jays, beautiful deep red cardinals, a woodpecker that’s tossing food down from the feeder to a quail couple that wondered in, an yes, dozens of crows. There’s no protesting. All is well! We’re going through a lot more feed, but if they come, we’ll feed them 🙂
thanks for sharing your observations.
I’ve been making it a point for the past months to observe crow behaviors: whether intentionally or not.
This question came up a few days ago and I thought that I would finally explore this since I’ve read of nestlings being taken but having just moved further to La Jolla, San Diego, where my hood is populated by a myriad of songbirds (which have nests in thick bushed shrubs by the “cliffs” of the foundation of my apartment) and seagulls (a few nestling occupied my pool over summer so I had the opportunity to watch them develop from my window!), I wondered if they do indeed hunt smaller birds (especially in urban areas where food may be abundant).
My hypothesis was that the crows prefer to forage for inanimated objects like eggs, corpses or, in certain cases, “dying” living things as they would spend less energy for an easy kill instead of having to observe the patterns of their “desired prey”.
I also managed to feed a couple of crows about 1.5 weeks ago at my hood but I had to gain some trust and curiosity from them as a pair of crows tilted their head and was curious as to why this human is showering seeds on the floor! A smaller crow 5-10meters away from us (i assume to be their offspring) would be more wary of me and only ate when I left.
I also managed to get 2 “close” encounter with a crow that I presume to be the same and the “alpha” since it was bigger: once when I was doing slow walking in the morning, it perched on a bush near me; second, when I was eating my dinner early in the evening by the pool and it perched on the railings.
Haven’t gotten a chance for any personal encounters since but I’m keeping track of when the sprinklers come off because I’ve seen crows sipping water from the cracks of the road when road activity is low because of rain or sprinkler water. Also it seems that different crows caw with different voices or frequencies. .
You were very patient with the comments! I agree that many people find it more upsetting when non-raptor birds kill other birds. I think it’s because it can feel so unexpected. Whenever I’ve had the honor of seeing a raptor, I’ve been struck by how, well, dangerous they look. A raptor killing another bird never feels like a surprise. But if you grew up enjoying crows, seeing them suddenly kill another bird is like watching a robin turn around and peck a chickadee to death. (Though worms might not find that so shocking.) You can almost feel betrayed.
But it’s not just crows – seagulls will kill smaller birds. So do blue jays. House sparrows even manage to kill bigger birds than them. And unlike crows, house sparrows are an invasive species in much of their territory. That was painful for me to learn. I grew up in NYC, watching house sparrows and pigeons got me into birding. I genuinely almost cried, hearing that house sparrows should be euthanized.
Emotional reactions are important, but that doesn’t mean they make sense, or need to be acted on. I volunteer with a group that tracks bird deaths from window strikes. The dead birds are brought to a museum, live birds are brought to a wildlife rehabilitator. As you might imagine, I find many dead birds, almost all caused by human action.
But it was still striking to find a disembodied bird head sitting right side up on the sidewalk, staring at me. Having seen too much Breaking Bad, all I could imagine was that a bird cartel left it there as a warning to others. After some googling, I learned that some raptors will rip apart their prey midair, and that a disembodied head has a good chance of landing right side up. That was the one dead bird I found that day that had actually fed another animal, that served any purpose. But it was still a little more disturbing to find than the others.
Thank you for sharing your experience and perspective Bannef!
My nephew works for a rancher in Montana. He told me that when the cows are ready to calf, they keep them together in a large pasture. When they start, they keep a person on duty with a rifle over the pasture to keep the crows from pecking the eyes out of the newborns. I know its natures way, but when its a business you need to make an attempt to control the outcome. Cattle are not native to the area but I assume crows are. So I guess mankind is somewhat responsible for mixing up the species around the world.
I love that article you wrote about crows actually telling people they were not as bad as everybody’s making him out to be and the fact that they’re the most intelligent animal basically on the planet make Crows special actually.. I personally Love Crows and Ravens.
This article is irrelevant to Ireland.
We do not experience any loss of chickadee etc. We never had those in the first place.we were a bit
Baloney. Since the crows moved in I have not seen a bird of any other type. Period. End of report.
Hi John, why do you think the crows suddenly moved in? Have you noticed any other changes in your neighborhood?
What happens to a fragile urban ecosystem when a someone or many people in a neighborhood heavily feed a top down species like the crow, does this have impact to other species? Does a sustained food source of humans feeding crows disrupt their complex social dynamics? Does it impact their population? Does food on the ground promote disease, predation, road hazards and unwanted rodents? Is it normal for crows to bark at the house that’s feeding them at the break of dawn everyday? Thanks for your info.
Hi Sam great questions. One thing I think it’s important to remember is that urban ecosystems, as far as habitat types are concerned, are not fragile. They are by definition dominated by generalists, adapters, and otherwise incredibly plastic species. Which doesn’t make them unimportant sources of habitat, they are incredibly important. But it’s useful to recognize them for what they are because that helps us understand the organisms that can live in them.
Anyway, to answer your questions, yes, if people in the neighborhood are feeding crows to such an extent that they are actively supporting a population that could not otherwise sustain itself in the neighborhood that IS a problem. Whether or not that’s actually happening is difficult to judge, however, as the crow feeders will say it’s not and the crow haters will say it is. So be wary of your own personal bias when considering this in your own neighborhood. That said, it’s pretty rare to have that happen (you need A LOT of food) but it’s possible. If you over supplement any type of predator (even an opportunistic omnivore like a crow) you can have negative consequences on prey species at the local level.
Sustained feeding from people doesn’t really impact crow social dynamics. American crows are urban adapters and the kinds of consequences that they face from being fed by an individual are the same as they face living mostly amongst us, even if only peripherally. So the main concern is their impact on other wildlife.
It’s incredibly unlikely that someone could feed crows to the extant that it would affect their population. Food isn’t the limiting factor for crows. So feeding them as a largely negligible impact on their reproductive success, survivorship, and ultimate population growth. Now, that doesn’t mean access to food is irrelevant. It’s just that in an urban environment the food they are obtaining from us is not mostly from direct handouts. It’s from our lawns and garbage bins. So while anthropogenic food does play a critical role in why crows thrive in cities and suburbia, it’s important to recognize the specific sources of that food.
Food on the ground can impact rodents but only if the food does not get eaten in a single sitting. If rats are a concern feeding crows is actually a safer option than traditional bird feeding because it’s much easier to control the amount and resulting waste. Food left on roads is a wildlife hazard, but rarely a people hazard. Meaning, the kinds of animals that come to roads to feed are more likely to be killed than to inflict damage to a vehicle or person. This is why it’s best not to throw food out of car windows even if it is biodegradable.
Finally, Crows are very social species, and as a result are very vocal. It’s normal for them to vocalize at the break of down as it is for almost all birds.
Cheers,