The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Wildlife => Topic started by: Fleecewife on May 18, 2019, 02:39:00 pm
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I have mentioned Crow and Hoodie here before. Crow came here a few years ago with a broken wing, hung around for a year while the wing mended, then stayed on. After a couple of years, Hoodie arrived, the only one around here. They became pals and if you saw one, then you saw the other. We assumed they were just friends. Then this year they started nest building, Hoodie disappeared for a bit to brood, then they started feeding chicks. We were really looking forward to the hybrid chicks fledging.
Then this morning we have found Hoodie dead as a doornail, underneath a power pole :'( She was a beautiful bird, in peak condition.
We are wondering if Crow can rear his brood alone and we still can see the hybrids around.
Please don't comment with how much you hate Crows. I don't, and that pair has never taken anything we didn't want them to. I am genuinely upset at this end of a mini soap opera we have followed for a while
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Would be difficult.
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Perhaps if you put out mealworms for Crow to feed the chicks with he may manage.
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Agree with buttermilk! Give him extra food to help him and maybe you will get a happy ending for the chicks! What type of bird was hoodie?
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That is so sad. I had a pet crow once and she was the most intelligent and entertaining animal I've ever had.
Knowing the horrible reputation of crows, I left a dead chick in front of her and she never touched it, and similarly when I showed her a dead lamb she showed no inclination to peck its eyes out. So I presume corvids just copy the behaviour of their parents, and if they have alternative food then they don't needlessly attack other animals.
But, like you say Fleecewife, this isn't about about the damage some crows do. I do hope that Crow manages to feed his offspring. Can you not retrieve them from the nest and feed them yourself.
Just a thought about feeding mealworms to baby birds. It occurs to me that they are very sharp and could easily pierce the skin when they are rammed down the babies' throats. I have started soaking them to soften them to make them safer for young birds.
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Thank you for the idea about soaking the mealworms. I prefer not to have the live ones around - they do smell! We put them out for tits and they are usually soaked by the rain, but it's been fairly dry here recently. The crows can't reach that feeder. The pair had been feeding their young from grain and seeds spilled from one of our bird feeders, but it's a good idea to put meal worms out for Crow, to speed up his foraging.
We once had a sort of pet crow when we lived in Edinburgh. It was a young bird which had injured a wing and was starving. It appeared beside Mr F when he was working outside, and hopped around him until he cottoned on it was hungry. It lurked around for a few weeks until it could manage alone, then left but visited now and again ;D They are indeed so intelligent and surprisingly lovable. Hoodie and Crow are not pets, but they do live here, and appear especially at sheep feeding time. It will be sad not to see Hoodie around. We buried her under her favourite perching tree, the tallest around.
We know the small piece of woodland where Crow and Hoodie nested, but not precisely which tree, and it's not on our land, so taking over feeding the young would be difficult (uncooperative neighbour - he would just shoot them). The little piece of woodland is only about 100yds away from our feeders, so not far for Crow.
roddycm - Hoodie is a Hooded Crow (they are all called 'hoodies' round here), Crow is a Carrion Crow. They are known to hybridise. When we looked closely at Hoodie's corpse, her back feathers, which are normally a bright grey, were grey with a black shading, so we think she might herself be a hybrid, so I suppose any young would be blacker than a hoodie.
I'm off to see if crows normally share parenting, such as brooding the young as well as feeding.
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I had a think about it after I posted and thought that might be the case! I've only ever seen a couple of hoodies in the wild. Beautiful birds. All the corvids are incredibly bright animals. My dad used to have a magpie and a jackdaw that he rescued and they would always come home to check in on him. Hope crow manages to raise the chicks!
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I'm off to see if crows normally share parenting, such as brooding the young as well as feeding.
Let's hope they do. :fc:
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I'm off to see if crows normally share parenting, such as brooding the young as well as feeding.
Let's hope they do. :fc:
What I found online was rather discouraging. I could only find info for American Crows which I suppose may be different. That site said that males never brood eggs or young, and that only the male forages, bringing food back for the female and chicks. Occasionally an older sibling will sit on eggs briefly when the female needs a break. That info was not about single parents though.
I thought that if Crow couldn't feed his young then they would already be dead by now. Then this evening I saw him with a mouthful of food from under the bird table, flying directly to the nest. That sounds hopeful ;D I also found out that although they usually mate for life, if one of the pair dies then the other will find a new mate. It just wouldn't be the same as Crow and Hoodie though :love:
Thank you everyone for being nice about our crows. No one round here tolerates them at all, or any of the corvids. We really enjoy the jackdaw family which has lived here since before we moved in, too - not the same birds of course, but it does seem to be a resident family. They are such interesting, cheeky birds, and so committed to family life ;D . Instead of being annoyed at being woken by a family of squabbling Jacklets at 4.30 every morning, having their loud disagreements and games right outside our bedroom window, I love it. I know - I'm potty, but I enjoy it
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I must admit black birds are scary to me. However, I don't kill anything unnecessarily. I did wonder if the crow might take over feeding if the chicks had hatched. Rather like your senses, if you lose one, the others take over.
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This might be of interest & offer you a little hope …
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT CROWS - Birds
www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/crowfaq.htm (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/crowfaq.htm)
09/11/2010 · Crow society is filled with excess crows that are waiting for an opportunity to breed (the helpers staying home and helping the parents raise young). If you kill some territory holders off, you just create a breeding opportunity for the crows waiting in the wings.
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That is really interesting Clodhopper. :thumbsup:
I've just been given a crow with a damaged wing. :sunshine: Have put it in the run I made for my peachicks that didn't happen, and will see how it gets on. At the moment it is frightened but I've left it with some food while it works things out. Hopefully I'll let it out eventually and it'll stay around. I love having a crow around again. :excited:
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Mini update:
We are still seeing Crow collecting food and heading back to the nest tree :fc:
Good luck with your Crow landroverroy. Poor thing will be terrified at first. Sheep coarse mix and meal worms are popular ;D
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Mini update:
We are still seeing Crow collecting food and heading back to the nest tree :fc:
That's amazing FW! Sounds encouraging then. On looking at the info on males not incubating the young, I took it to mean that the males didn't take it in turns with the females; but wonder if anyone has actually researched whether the male would take over if the female got killed, which is entirely different. Crows after all are very intelligent and I would have thought that as the male takes food to the nest then he would automatically feed the clamouring young if there was no one else there. And if they were old enough they could maybe keep each other warm provided they were well fed.
Good luck with your Crow landroverroy. Poor thing will be terrified at first. Sheep coarse mix and meal worms are popular ;D
I've left it some water with wheat and mealworms. :sunshine:
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Mini update:
We are still seeing Crow collecting food and heading back to the nest tree :fc:
That's amazing FW! Sounds encouraging then. On looking at the info on males not incubating the young, I took it to mean that the males didn't take it in turns with the females; but wonder if anyone has actually researched whether the male would take over if the female got killed, which is entirely different. Crows after all are very intelligent and I would have thought that as the male takes food to the nest then he would automatically feed the clamouring young if there was no one else there. And if they were old enough they could maybe keep each other warm provided they were well fed.
Good luck with your Crow landroverroy. Poor thing will be terrified at first. Sheep coarse mix and meal worms are popular ;D
I've left it some water with wheat and mealworms. :sunshine:
We had a lengthy downpour today - stair rods and white ball bearings. I hope Crow was at home to protect his little ones during that - it was vicious
Yes, interesting point - I couldn't find any info about abnormal situations, also my info all came from the US, and was to do with American Crows which might be different.
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Presumably the young are a few weeks old now and hopefully well feathered. Also now that the trees are in full leaf the nest may be nice and sheltered.
You might get an amazing surprise in a week or so with Crow turning up with his family in tow. :fc:
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Oh I do hope so
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Update:
Sadly, Crow never appeared with a family in tow, and gradually he stopped taking food to the nest. We think the young were probably taken by predators while he was out foraging.
Happily, Crow has now appeared with a new Mrs Crow, showing her the ropes of the best places to pinch hen and sheep food, sitting in the same tall tree he and Hoody used as their lookout, and collecting worms and larvae from the same pastures. So just perhaps they will breed together and we will get a family this year :hshoe: :yippee:
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Well I guess that's the way of the wild. :thinking:
But I'm so glad crow has got a new mate so he can rebuild his life.
I just think crows are such amazing birds. I used to get so much pleasure from mine.