• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Meet The Corvids: Crows, Rooks, Jackdaws & Others (Misc.)

Loads of ravens round here. Lots of jackdaws and a magpie or four too. In fact, when it was really hot recently and the windows were open, one of the magpies kept trying to get in the house! They're too smart...
 
Lots of little ravens about at the moment here. They have been absent for the cold weather but there are lots now.
Also magpies carolling quite early in the morning and haven't seen any of them for a few years.
I read that they think it's going to be an early Spring this year.
 
At our old house we had a couple of ravens would visit us regularly, we'd feed them strips of bacon and liver. They'd call from outside when they arrived so we'd know they were there. Anyway we moved house at the end of June and I was a little sad at leaving our ravens but you know, life goes on and off we went.

Two week later I'm at our new place, its Saturday morning, got the doors and windows open because of the heat, when I hear a familiar cawing noise. I go to the door and there they are, sat on the wall!!

I know they're very intelligent but I'm still pretty amazed that they found us, we've moved about 8 miles from where we were.

One more thing, they used to tease our cat mercilessly but the other day ours was being picked as she's the new kid on the block, the ravens weren't having another cat picking on her, she's their cat after all and they swiftly saw the bully off.
 
That is amazing!

We had a jackdaw sitting on our window ledge tapping at the window the other morning. Not sure what it wanted. Maybe it could see its reflection?
 
When the ravens are about if anyone comes up the path to the door a group of them will begin to caw loudly till I come to see what is happening.
One of my friends asked if I had a duck and I told her it was just one of the ravens making a noise.
 
Mouldy13 said:
At our old house we had a couple of ravens would visit us regularly, we'd feed them strips of bacon and liver. They'd call from outside when they arrived so we'd know they were there. Anyway we moved house at the end of June and I was a little sad at leaving our ravens but you know, life goes on and off we went.

Two week later I'm at our new place, its Saturday morning, got the doors and windows open because of the heat, when I hear a familiar cawing noise. I go to the door and there they are, sat on the wall!!

I know they're very intelligent but I'm still pretty amazed that they found us, we've moved about 8 miles from where we were.

One more thing, they used to tease our cat mercilessly but the other day ours was being picked as she's the new kid on the block, the ravens weren't having another cat picking on her, she's their cat after all and they swiftly saw the bully off.
Click to expand...
How did they tease your cat 'mercilessly',?

Some years ago, our cat used to be teased frequently by jackdaws.

I thought, until right now, it a unique occurrence.

When our cat was, typically, having a nap on top of the garden wall, some jackdaws would line up on the end of the wall - seriously - and one by one would hover over our dozing cat. Naturally, cat wasn't having any of this and would leap up trying to get one of them.

However... they always kept a height *just slightly* out of reach.

This happened so often - the kids found it just hysterical - it became evident it was orchestrated and they were simply taking the...

I have always thought of this as unprecedented and a one-off.

Could you possibly please tell us more about your experience?
 
Magpies dive bomb one of my cats when she's out on the roof. She gets so frustrated and they seem to be having a brilliant time.
 
onetwothree said:
Magpies dive bomb one of my cats when she's out on the roof. She gets so frustrated and they seem to be having a brilliant time.
Click to expand...
il_570xN.548391008_o4da.jpg
 
If you search YouTube for, 'birds teasing cats', looks like there might be a conspiracy here...

(No copyright, public domain image)

grumpy-cat (1).jpg
 
Comfortably Numb said:
How did they tease your cat 'mercilessly',?

Some years ago, our cat used to be teased frequently by jackdaws.

I thought, until right now, it a unique occurrence.

When our cat was, typically, having a nap on top of the garden wall, some jackdaws would line up on the end of the wall - seriously - and one by one would hover over our dozing cat. Naturally, cat wasn't having any of this and would leap up trying to get one of them.

However... they always kept a height *just slightly* out of reach.

This happened so often - the kids found it just hysterical - it became evident it was orchestrated and they were simply taking the...

I have always thought of this as unprecedented and a one-off.

Could you possibly please tell us more about your experience?
Click to expand...


One of them will stand in front of her while the other sneaks up behind and pecks at her tail. They dive bomb her, basically they are inveterate piss takers
 
That was previously my observation re wee Cassie. They had quite intentionally all deliberately ganged up for no other reason than to antagonise her!
 
Years ago the cat I had then wiped out a nest of Mistle Thrush chicks (bastard), throughout the whole summer whenever the adult birds saw him they would divebomb him.
The cat that lives with me now, (technically not actually my cat), has a very uneasy truce with the local Magpies.They don't make any fuss when they see her but they do if they see foxes or another cat in the garden. Do they "understand" it's her territory?, would'nt put it past them.Interesting watching them near a fox,they will approach to within two feet behind a fox but more than three feet at the toothy end.There's often a racket going on at the bottom of the garden, it's often the Magpies and Jays having a go at each other.Have seen Crows and Magpies doing the "tree dance" as Mikefule described above, but often with another crow higher up the tree and trying to hide from the magpie while it waits for the one near the magpie to flush it away from the tree so it can swoop on it.Got to love the crow family,they really do hate each other.
 
Bullseye said:
Years ago the cat I had then wiped out a nest of Mistle Thrush chicks (bastard), throughout the whole summer whenever the adult birds saw him they would divebomb him.
The cat that lives with me now, (technically not actually my cat), has a very uneasy truce with the local Magpies.They don't make any fuss when they see her but they do if they see foxes or another cat in the garden. Do they "understand" it's her territory?, would'nt put it past them.Interesting watching them near a fox,they will approach to within two feet behind a fox but more than three feet at the toothy end.There's often a racket going on at the bottom of the garden, it's often the Magpies and Jays having a go at each other.Have seen Crows and Magpies doing the "tree dance" as Mikefule described above, but often with another crow higher up the tree and trying to hide from the magpie while it waits for the one near the magpie to flush it away from the tree so it can swoop on it.Got to love the crow family,they really do hate each other.
Click to expand...
That Mistle Thrush nest mate, likewise..

painful
 
Allow me to mention a recent thought I had - linked (although not entirely relevant.)

I was thinking about the cruelty of the often used (often at least in the UK) “Larson Trap Cages”
A cage in which a corvid/magpie is trapped, and the distress attracts a “like” bird, concerned enough to try and help. They then become trapped themselves - they then become the “new bait” for the next victim.

I thought of the cruelty and waste, of breeding out the empathetic and intelligent, leaving only the fearful and indifferent to remain and breed . . .

But that is farming isn’t it. All livestock is bred to be docile and unthinking - any animal showing intelligence or initiative is removed from the gene pool.

Sigh . . .
 
Amoradala2 said:
Allow me to mention a recent thought I had - linked (although not entirely relevant.)

I was thinking about the cruelty of the often used (often at least in the UK) “Larson Trap Cages”
A cage in which a corvid/magpie is trapped, and the distress attracts a “like” bird, concerned enough to try and help. They then become trapped themselves - they then become the “new bait” for the next victim.

I thought of the cruelty and waste, of breeding out the empathetic and intelligent, leaving only the fearful and indifferent to remain and breed . . .

But that is farming isn’t it. All livestock is bred to be docile and unthinking - any animal showing intelligence or initiative is removed from the gene pool.

Sigh . . .
Click to expand...

"But that is farming isn’t it. All livestock is bred to be docile and unthinking - any animal showing intelligence or initiative is removed from the gene pool"...

Thankfully, hasn't 'responsible farming', born out of a realisation of precisely this, made a profound difference in recent years?

What do you think?
 
Amoradala2 said:
Allow me to mention a recent thought I had - linked (although not entirely relevant.)

I was thinking about the cruelty of the often used (often at least in the UK) “Larson Trap Cages”
A cage in which a corvid/magpie is trapped, and the distress attracts a “like” bird, concerned enough to try and help. They then become trapped themselves - they then become the “new bait” for the next victim.

I thought of the cruelty and waste, of breeding out the empathetic and intelligent, leaving only the fearful and indifferent to remain and breed . . .

But that is farming isn’t it. All livestock is bred to be docile and unthinking - any animal showing intelligence or initiative is removed from the gene pool.

Sigh . . .
Click to expand...

I have come across one of these on a walk one time. I wondered what creature they were trying to protect. Nasty as they may be I don't think they're making much difference to the intelligence of corvids in general.
 
So... going back to the topic intro...

'Jackdaws & Other Birds'.

We had one of those whirligig implements in the garden and duly attached three new bird feeders.

However, at the end of each whirligig arm, there's an upturned metal loop to accommodate the essential washing line cords.

So... we placed the bird feeders beyond that loop, essentially to ensure they didn't easily fall off.

Wee birds were having a great time... then we would wake up of a morning and all three bird feeders would be lying on the ground, burst wide open.

Eventually caught the culprits... our quintessential jackdaws...

What they had sussed out, 'en masse', was that if they lifted the inherent bird feeder loop attachment *over* the metal loop impediment on said whirligig arm... it would consequently drop down and spill it's contents - free peanut scran for all..

I remember thinking that my resultant annoyance was tempered by respect...
 
Amoradala2 said:
I was thinking about the cruelty of the often used (often at least in the UK) “Larson Trap Cages”
A cage in which a corvid/magpie is trapped, and the distress attracts a “like” bird, concerned enough to try and help. They then become trapped themselves - they then become the “new bait” for the next victim.

I thought of the cruelty and waste...
Click to expand...

The magpies aren’t responding to the confined bird’s distress calls in order to help it, you know...

Magpies are pest birds which consume the eggs and chicks of other birds. Their numbers have increased dramatically. They, and the cats which so many FTMB members swoon over, are responsible for the deaths of scores of millions of songbirds every year.

But shooting - boo, eh?

maximus otter
 
Comfortably Numb said:
Some years ago, our cat used to be teased frequently by jackdaws.

I thought, until right now, it a unique occurrence.

When our cat was, typically, having a nap on top of the garden wall, some jackdaws would line up on the end of the wall - seriously - and one by one would hover over our dozing cat. Naturally, cat wasn't having any of this and would leap up trying to get one of them.

However... they always kept a height *just slightly* out of reach.

This happened so often - the kids found it just hysterical - it became evident it was orchestrated and they were simply taking the...

I have always thought of this as unprecedented and a one-off.
Click to expand...

I once stood at my bedroom window and watched for a good ten minutes whilst a magpie wound up our cat, the Mighty Huntress (sarcasm alert - she's nothing of the sort!). Cat was sitting on our back fence. The magpie was strutting up and down the roof of the rear neighbours' extension, goading her, but she just sat and made like it wasn't there. So the magpie flew down onto the fence, maybe four feet away. The Mighty Huntress was only a cat - she casually uncurled herself and started to wander nonchalantly in that direction, at which point the magpie swooped off back onto the extension. The Mighty Huntress resumed her chilled pose whilst the bird strutted up and down the roof. It landed back on the fence and flew off a couple more times, by which point the Mighty Huntress had decided that this bird was 'aving a laugh and decided to ignore it completely. The bird, however, was obviously entertained!
 
I used to watch the rooks out the window when I was a kid as they landed on their tree top nests (rookery) in the nearby woods. Every so often one hovering on the wing would flip upside down onto its back and then right itelf - it was the darnest thing.
It was about this time I was told the difference between a rook and a crow : " If you see more than one crow they are rooks, if there is only one rook its a crow".
 
In the summer little birds tease our Bedlington Terrier. When warm we keep the back door open and little birds sit in the lower branches of a bush.

When Dolly legs it out to get at them they fly up and sit on top of the fence looking at her.

I'm sure that they enjoy doing it too.
 
Bad Bungle said:
It was about this time I was told the difference between a rook and a crow : " If you see more than one crow they are rooks, if there is only one rook its a crow".
Click to expand...

Dunno about this - crows certainly roost together in numbers & you often see them feeding together in a field. A murder of crows..
 
Here is a handy British site for identifying the corvid clans:
https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/blog/hiwwt/rook-raven-jackdaw-or-crow

I'm in North America, where rooks are classified as "vagrants"—that is, they don't live here, but they sometimes end up here by accident— huge flocks of crows in some areas gather in the evening to roost together. They are not rooks, since rooks aren't from here. And I mean, huge. Fifty, a hundred. They take over entire parks. During the day they disperse to look for food (and tease various creatures). Over here at least, crows are not solitary.
 
hunck said:
Dunno about this - crows certainly roost together in numbers & you often see them feeding together in a field. A murder of crows..
Click to expand...

American crows flock together (I don't think rooks are found there), but in the UK a pair of crows tend to nest in one tree rather than in a colony like a rookery. Crows can be found together but a big flock tend to be rooks.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Crows can be found together but a big flock tend to be rooks.
Click to expand...

Also - some of those rooks might actually be jackdaws, as these two species sometimes flock together. But yes, if there are one, two or at the most three birds then it's likely to be crows.
 
Why are there often those blue eyed jackdaws at ruined abbeys? Did someone introduce them to those places in the past? Or is it just a habitat they like? I've often wondered why we only seem to see them at certain old abbeys and castles..?
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Why are there often those blue eyed jackdaws at ruined abbeys? Did someone introduce them to those places in the past? Or is it just a habitat they like? I've often wondered why we only seem to see them at certain old abbeys and castles..?
Click to expand...

Going off-topic, but why do I only ever see pied wagtails on tarmac? Carparks and garage forecourts seem to be their preferred habitat in the 20thC, I wonder where they were hanging out a thousand years ago. They must be adapted for rocky ground so the ever increasing urban sprawl seems to be to their advantage.
Pied wagtail.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top