Crows, much like squirrels, have always existed on the periphery for me.
This, even though I’ve always been particularly pleased by the phrase “murder of crows,” or group of crows. Also delightful: committee of vultures, parliament of owls and gulp of cormorants.
The big, black birds always seemed to be around, plucking at some poor animal’s carcass on the side of the road or bawdily cawing to their buddies while flitting from light pole to light pole. Sometimes I even got the uncomfortable feeling they were making snide remarks about me as I walked by. I never gave them much thought, though I once read they could remember the faces of humans who had been jerks to them, and then plot with their brethren to harass said humans. That tidbit stuck, and prompted me to treat them more reverently, for fear of a reenactment of Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
But then last year I learned another juicy nugget of information — that often when you see a flock of crows squawking and flying about in one small area, there’s a good chance a hawk, owl or other bird of prey is nearby. The crows are mobbing the predator and trying to banish him from the area.
Since learning this, I’ve seen it happen twice. The first was in the giant old tree right outside my front door. I heard a cacophony of crows, went outside, looked up and saw a hawk of some sort digging into its lunch of a dead bird, which was carefully placed on the branch next to it. Consider me traumatized. I greatly dislike that birds eat other birds. What if humans did this on the regular?
The second time was while driving, and I spied a murder of crows flying around one tree. As I got closer, I could see a hawk sitting on a branch, though it looked a bit dazed and confused, and sort of swayed on its perch. I felt horribly sorry and even cried for said hawk, who looked to be just minding its own hawk business, until I got to my destination and Googled why crows might be antagonizing the poor guy. That’s when I learned hawks sometimes eat crow babies, and I could empathize with the crows. I really wish I didn’t anthropomorphize so much.
Come to find out much later that crows also have been known to eat the nestlings of other birds. Oh, this animal kingdom will be the death of me. So brutal.
But I am now officially crow curious. The wily birds are part of the corvid family, which also includes blue jays, scrub jays, stellar jays, magpies and ravens, and we are rife with them.
“I’m pretty sure we have more corvids along the Front Range than anywhere else,” said Steve Getty, an avid, longtime bird watcher who leads field trips for Aiken Audubon Society. He’s also director of Colorado College’s Quantitative Reasoning Center.
Getty also is an appreciator of crows, and corvids in general. They’re super smart, communicative and fun to watch.
“If I see a crow, I’m always curious to see what they’re doing,” Getty said. “They’re usually communicating with each other, or if they’re alone, they seem to be exploring something. They’re not just sitting there sleeping. They’re always engaged. That has to do with some of their cognitive abilities compared to other birds.”
In one study of the most innovative bird feeding behaviors, the winners were crows, ravens and parrots. New Caledonian crows are known to take a stick and make marks that serve as barbs, so they can put it in dirt mounds and pull out termites and other insects. Crows also are known to put shelled nuts down on roads at stop signs. A car will drive by and act as a nutcracker for the hungry bird. They also are sociopaths who drop rocks on rabbits’ heads, ensuring a fresh carcass for lunch.
“That’s tool use,” Getty said. “The other thing unique to those higher-level birds is the learning they actually do. A lot of social behavior is learned.”
Getty confirmed my earlier story about crows and facial recognition. A researcher studying their socialization needed to keep track of them, so he donned a cave man mask, caught a couple and banded them. Later, whenever he would go out into the neighborhood without the mask, the crows left him alone.
But when he went out with the mask on, the crows would dive bomb and scold him, even the crows he hadn’t banded.
“It’s not that they recognize people, but if they have a reason to remember something they will,” Getty said. “What was amazing was how the ones who were banded were passing on to others that this guy was a potential threat.”
Nine years later, the same researcher put on the same mask, went out into the same neighborhood and was mobbed once again, this time by crows that hadn’t been born the first time. They were able to somehow pass along the information, though researchers aren’t quite sure how.
Finally, how does one tell the difference between a crow and a raven? If they’re side by side on a fence, the bigger one is typically the raven. It gets more dicey if you see a big, black bird fly overhead or perched in a tree by itself.
If you’re in an urban area, it’s likely a crow, though we do have ravens in Colorado Springs. Wildlife biologist Joe LaFleur believes your best chance of deciphering between the two is the tail.
“The tail of the crow is flat at the tip,” he said. “The tip of a raven’s tail is rounded. A raven has a thicker beak. The voice can be different. The most distinctive call for a raven is a lower-pitched, croaky call. A crow tends to have a higher-pitched call, but a raven can also do one. But you wouldn’t hear a crow do a low-pitched croaky call.”
Contact the writer: 636-0270
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Bird Call: Crows, glorious crows; smart, chatty, loud - Colorado Springs Gazette
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