We have a crow who has been hanging out here for about 6 or 8 years we named Pretty Bird which has since had a family male crow 'Clucker 'and to peeps Clucker Jr and Nikki who are now about grown. Yesterday we gave Pretty Bird one of her favorite treats ,a soda cracker. We watcher her bury it up close to our porch. Also watched her dig it back up today and share it with Nikki who always hangs out wwith her and caus to top of her lungs till Prety Bird deciplines her with a sharp peck. Crows are fun to watch. Most of them who use fly in flocks in our n-hood have disappeared fro some reason.Now it just this one family we see and feed dog food for last few years. They use to take out hens eggs but since we feed them no more egg thefts. We don't feed wild birds can't afford the expensive bird seed. We use to. We have our own little small wildlife sanctuary here since so many have moved in and cleared our habitat for these animals.We have a deer who has had several fawns here who comes and checks us out now and then. We use to have all kinds of fox,coons,possums owls ,hawks and even one florida panther seen now all are gone or we don't see them anymore. Too many peopel shooting an no forest left from clearing .
Our crow PrettyBird just got attacked by our hen. She got her down and hubby had to break them up. I gave PrettyBird a soda cracker to make her feel better,it worked I guess she fly off ok with her cracker in her beak. She usually likes to show it off and prance back and forth in front of the hens with it in her mouth. Guess that wasn't good idea today..
The hen injured PrettyBird and she went off and died. Then the same night the hen aka Goldie attacked Prety Bird a possum killed the hen threw the fence. A possum will pull the birds head thrw the fence and kill it. So we lost a good hen and Pretty Bird all in the same 24 hour period. So we stopped feeding the crows and they don't come around as much. Now we only have 3 hens.
A lot of people don't like crows but I do. I found their crowing to be easy enough to listen to and I like to watch them. They don't often eat from the bowl that I leave out for the squirrels and the birds, either because it's too close to my upstairs window or because they don't like the stuff I put in there, but I was watching them raid the food bowl one day while I was outside. It was an actual tactical operation. There were four crows, and they were staged in different places around the yard, from the tree right next to the food bowl to one near the railroad tracks at the back of my yard. While one would swoop down and eat, the others stood guard, or so it seemed. As that one grabbed what it wanted, the others would move forward until they were in line to eat. The tree nearest the tracks was used as the dining room. They talked back and forth. The crow that grabbed its food would fly to the back of the yard, to that tree, while the others moved forward. They kept that up for quite along time and didn't seem to deviate from the plan.
I usually have my yard covered with crows and ravens because I keep a water fountain going. I once battled with the crows over bringing in food and losing it in my fountain. Things got ugly and the birds were pooing on my patio and constantly cussing at me and acting a bit aggressive. A friend brought me a book on crows and their intelligence and how they have a 5-year memory and pass along grudges to their young, so battling with them never ends. I changed my attitude and talked sweetly to them, stopped my aggressive behavior, and in a few weeks, they showed appreciation. I still had a lot of birds but they were quieter and didn't clog my fountain with discarded food. This year I noticed fewer crows and mostly ravens and then I found 3 ravens dead in my yard. The wildlife expert said it was West Nile Virus and of no concern. Just toss them in the garbage can. What is strange is no one else in the neighborhood had any dead crows in their yard. All 3 sick birds came here to die. Two were alive but very sick and I couldn't whack them with a shovel as suggested because not only have I become an old softy, but I feared other birds might see and start a new grudge. I even put out a water pan close to them and one did drink. I hope this next spring I see some appreciation from the crows and ravens and there is no misunderstanding or grudges held.
Pretty Birds family still comes to see us at times but somebody said dog food wasn't good and but it like they don't have Pretty Bird o guide them now. We like crows too Ken they are very amart birds. I worry too about them beig shot by one of our neighbors because they are use to people,but Pretty B. lived long time.
Iagree about how smart they are. One of ours may be a raven not sure it makes all kinf=ds of souds why w named it Clucker but then again it seemed to be our crows mate too they has two crows one clucked and one crowed.
Crows will attack hawks unrelentingly, and the hawks have no defense. I have heard that if you want to own hawk-proof chickens to get black ones because they hawks won't come near anything that looks like a crow.
Several years ago we saw two of the crows knock a rabbit out of the grasp of hawk in mid air. I just caught a glance but hubby saw it from beginning. In 24 years we haven't lost a chicken to a hawk and we have plenty hawks here.We've lost a few to fox,possums coons but mostly snakes have been the worst to get our peeps about 8 peeps so far over the years.We take the snakes to the woods but if they com back we have to kill them and we don't like doing that.Snakes are disappearing all over the world and nobody knows why.We hav a really good snake grabber now it is better than what we use to use. Even cme with a bag.
I mentioned before that I came across a copperhead at the end of my lot, and since it presented no danger to me and was nowhere near the house, I just left it alone. Regarding hawks & chickens: why do you think your chickens were hawk-proof?
I think it was the crows who guarded our hens. Pretty Bird has been hanging around for years. Or was. Plus our dogs use to run while looking up if they saw hawks. I'm not sure. We have always let them free rangefrom morning till dusk. .Sometimes they even left the property but not often.