The other day I was walking outside with a friend when she stopped to look at the bird flying overhead. As I looked up to see an American crow, she started walking again with a disgusted mutter: "trash bird". What??
When I asked her about it she said that she calls crows trash birds becaus they're common and uninteresting; therefore not worth the time to really look at. What?? How can anyone think that crows are uninteresting?
- Most young crows stay with their parents (for up to 5 years) and help to raise their younger "siblings".
- American crows sleep in communal roosts during winter; the roosts may be a few hundred or even a few thousand crows!
- Even though we often see crows eating road kill, they are not 'designed' to be scavengers. Their bills are too weak to break through the skin of other animals, so they must wait for something else (a true scavenger, or a car for example) to open a carcass before they can eat.
- Baby crows are like baby pigeons: it seems that you never see them! In fact, you do see them, but don't realilze it. Young crows are about the same size as adults, but have blue eyes and pink inside their mouths. The eyes and mouth get darker as the bird ages.
- Crows are really smart; this is a problem for researchers because it makes crows hard for them to trap!
- The "caw-caw" that we're used to hearing from crows is an alert call, warning family members that there is an intruder.
- Crows can open nuts by striking them with their bill while holding the nut under one foot. If it's a really heavy-shelled nut, or a clam, the crow will fly up into the air and drop the food on a hard surface to open it.
Have you seen crows or any other wildlife in South Burlington lately? If so, I'd love to hear about it! Simply comment on this posting to tell me about what you've seen in South Burlington, and where. I want to hear about crows, or rabbits, or coyotes...whatever you've seen! Check out my first post, called "Let the Fun Begin" for more info!
A fairly large number of crows have been flying around our area, very noisily ( Southe Point - east side of Spear Street about 1/2 mile north of Allen Rd.) for the past two months. There was one solo wild turkey at our backyard feeder today. We usually see about 4 or 5 at a time. There is at least one rabbit living under our front deck. Its tracks are always there after a fresh show. A fairly large flock of Canada Geese flew overhead heading north about 2 weeks ago and before the snow melted we saw deer tracks in the woods just to the east of us.
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