Crow Thread

"...the crow-court, or meeting, does not appear to be complete before the expiration of a day or two, with crows coming from all quarters to the session.

As soon as they are all arrived, a very general noise ensues, the business of the court is opened, and shortly after they all fall upon one or two individual crows, (who are supposed to have been condemned by their peers,) and put them to death. When the execution is over, they quietly disperse."

Dr. Thomas edmondstone. View of the Ancient and Present State of the Shetland Islands

Honest to god I thought you were sh*ttin' me so I went ahead and looked up some YT vids and, well, they speak for themselves I guess...



I still think you're sh**tin me though

lonegurkha
Excellent thread. Crows are fastinating creatures.Years ago I used to work for the local zoo.It's located in a very old park in Buffalo.Every October the crows would gather in the tens of thousands in the park and stay together there for about a week.They came from all over the area.It seemed like they were having a party.They still do this every October.When whatever they are doing is over they disappear as quickly as they appeared.

I don't think that it is a migration thing as it doesn't occur in the spring.Very odd,there are so many of them and they raise quite a racket.It happens the second or third week in October every year.

Over the years I have known a couple of folks who kept them as pets. Super intelligent birds.They could do all kinds of tricks they had been taught.

There are crow gatherings in Heriot Watt campus in Edinburgh, usually in the evenings in Summer/Autumn. The sky would be filled with what seemed to be a hundred if not more. Just roosting in the trees, then they'd go flying up into the sky and move on somewhere else.

When I was in Canada, one used to land on the sundeck outside my apartment, and just go "Cawwwww" from to 1 to 5 times. In the distance, I would hear other crows do the same. It definitely seems that they were exchanging information, but I could never figure out what they were talking about.

Our cat caught one All the other species of birds were chirping away like mad for the rest of the day - so it definitely seems that they recognize each other as cousins.

A couple of years ago, there used to be a crow that hung out at a local fast food restaurant.
He would take pecans, from a nearby tree, and place them in the drive through drive way and wait for the cars to drive over them and crack the shells. He could found doing this at the same time every day, right around one pm.
I also used to have a crow follow when I walked the dog, he would follow us for about a mike around the block.

Crows are NOT good birds. They may be very intelligent and cunning, but I, for one, despise the despicable creature!

I wish I could shoot everyone I see.

Have you ever noticed that they are basically harbinger's of death and gloominess? Watch a 'murder' (now that's ominous in itself) of crows move in to an area, and you'll quickly see the trees they perch upon slowly die. If nothing is done to rid these scavengers soon, the entire tree will quickly be nothing more than a stick.

I've seen entire sections of forest turn completely dead and lifeless, but for the sick soul crows that inhabit it.


A few years ago I saved a baby robin from attacking crows in my yard by throwing rocks at them. I swear the mother robin and community were thanking me (don't ask how I know?)

But those crows never forgave me and actually hung around to creep me out for years afterward.

Ugh, kill them all!!

reply to post by Goldcurrent


Crows know things. What else did you do besides throw rocks at them?


PS. Crows do not kill trees.


~soficrow

reply to post by soficrow


I've been an outdoorsman long enough to know and have a connection to nature to know that crows either a) revel in death (thus inhabiting dead areas) or b) are the cause of such death.

They are parasitic creatures.

Goldcurrent
reply to post by soficrow

 

I've been an outdoorsman long enough to know and have a connection to nature to know that crows either a) revel in death (thus inhabiting dead areas) or b) are the cause of such death.

They are parasitic creatures.

I've been an outdoorswoman for over 60 years and have a deep connection to nature too. Crows are opportunistic feeders and yes, eat carrion. We should thank them for environmental clean-up. Many nature-based cultures believe that when crows eat diseased dead things they remove the disease as a threat. In my teachings, crows do not "revel in death" or "cause such death" - they live according to natural law, know truth and speak truth.

American Crows eat a wide variety of foods, including: fruits, grains, nuts, acorns, snails, mussels, small birds, eggs, rabbits, mice, toads, crayfish, snakes, lizards, salamanders, rats, grasshoppers, cutworms, Junebugs, grubs, weevils, and other insects.

A major food source of crows is carrion. ...

Definitely an excellent thread! I did not know about any of this and can't wait to look into it a bit more!

reply to post by Bybyots


Holy crap, what a great thread. Crows and Ravens are among the animals I hold holy and dear to my heart. Admittedly, I have never looked this closely at their behavior and what you've presented is right in line with who and what they correspond with on esoteric matters.

Content like this has been rare lately, thanks for the write-up and I can't wait to go over it all more intently when I have the time.

reply to post by Bybyots


Bird voyeur !

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all very much for coming by to check out Crow Thread and contribute your posts.

As I put this thread together I could not help but realize the real impact that these birds have had on human communities. Some get it a whole lot worse than others, like in Chatham, Ontario and Washington State.

As a young person I was fortunate enough to make my living for several years working in the horticulture trade. Most of the crow issues that I was privy to were not good ones. I have heard stories of their cruelty that would curl your toenails. It never has shaken my fascination with and love for the birds, but I am aware that crows mete out death so swiftly and confidently that one could come to believe that they relish in it.

It's not just towards other species either, they go after each other, at times, with the same seeming enthusiasm.

My deal though, as far as them being parasites, is that I have sort of trained myself to not see that sort of thing as a pest, or what have you, but as an extension of our activity in the world. It's that koyaanisqatsi thing, something is out of balance and we have been presented with a very dramatic opportunity to find a solution. I realize that may not seem very realistic to someone in the heat of it, but I am an idealist.

Anyhow, all that to say that I appreciate both sides of the crow-story being here. It's amazing how the birds have such an impact on human life.

Thanks again to all.

reply to post by randyvs

Bird voyeur !

You know it baby!

This one's for you Randy...

I love crows but recently (past few months) here in West Yorkshire UK there are uggins of them, I saw 8 outside my window and they were big buggers.
I think the population of them has exploded around here, Iam quite happy about it because I try and have a chat with them on my walk to work

reply to post by Bybyots


That was awesome
I was cheering for the birds to eat the Ginger kid lol.
(PS I was a Ginger when I was a child and I have been married to three of them).

They also respect their dead.





Can't really tell from the videos but when I used to play golf I saw a dead crow and another crow flew down and dropped a little flower on it's buddy.

ha! humans...
they say the crow is almost as smart as them.
but I think the are smarter than humans.

you let a human child try some of the things
a crow can do First time.
and see how many times a child needs to do it?
and look at the brain size differences!!!

humans seem the smartest only because
they have very good hands.

reply to post by Bybyots


Yeah they're really smart. I one saw a crow try to get a neighborhood cat hit by a car!

The cat was crossing, with cars coming and the crow swooped down on the cat, which sat up on it's hind legs pawing at the air in a furious attempt to catch the bird, in the middle of the road. The cat barely escaped getting his by the oncoming traffic, which seemed to be the intention of the crow, to freeze the cat in the middle of the road.

On the subject of "Crow Courts" or "Crow Parliament"

They are very rarely seen by human beings. There are plenty of anecdotes, but I have yet to find the definitive video. I could swear that I saw one years ago where many crows had another circled and I just can't seem to find it. So, the call goes out to anyone interested in trying to track such a video down. Meanwhile.

There are plenty of stories to be read on the web though. This fanciful fictional version of a Crow Court is from the book The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley and it was written in 1916.

On the rabbit burrows on the shore there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows, such as you see in Cambridgeshire. And they made such a noise, that Tom came on shore and went up to see what was the matter.

And there he found them holding their great caucus, which they hold every year in the North; and all their stump-orators were speechifying; and for a tribune, the speaker stood on an old sheep's skull.

And they cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things they had done; how many lambs' eyes they had picked out, and how many dead bullocks they had eaten, and how many young grouse they had swallowed whole, and how many grouse eggs they had flown away with, stuck on the point of their bills, which is the hoodie-crow's particularly clever feat, of which he is as proud as a gipsy is of doing the hokanybaro; and what that is, I won't tell you.

And at last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, and all began abusing and vilifying, and rating, and bullyragging at her, because she had stolen no grouse-eggs, and had actually dared to say that she would not steal any. So she was to be tried publicly by their laws (for the hoodies always try some offenders in their great yearly parliament). And there she stood in the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, looking as meek and as neat as a Quakeress, and they all bawled at her at once—

And it was in vain that she pleaded—

That she did not like grouse eggs;
That she could get her living very well without them;
That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the gamekeepers;
That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse were such pretty, kind, jolly birds;
And a dozen reasons more.
For all the other scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked her to death there and then, before Tom could come to help her; and then flew away, very proud of what they had done.

Now, was not this a scandalous transaction?

But they are true republicans, these hoodies, who do every one just what he likes, and make other people do so too; so that, for any freedom of speech, thought, or action, which is allowed among them, they might as well be American citizens of the new school.

But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her nine new sets of feathers running, and turned her at last into the most beautiful bird of paradise with a green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat fruit in the Spice Islands, where cloves and nutmegs grow.

www.gutenberg.org...

I have seem some extreme and unusual crow behaviour in my time, but I have never happened upon a Crow Court. I find the idea of them really interesting, though.

NewAgeMan
reply to post by Bybyots

 

Yeah they're really smart. I one saw a crow try to get a neighborhood cat hit by a car!

The cat was crossing, with cars coming and the crow swooped down on the cat, which sat up on it's hind legs pawing at the air in a furious attempt to catch the bird, in the middle of the road. The cat barely escaped getting hit by the oncoming traffic, which seemed to be the intention of the crow, to freeze the cat in the middle of the road.

It would have given new meaning to the phrase "road kill". That said I'm glad that Jessie the cat got away, unscathed. It was very close though.

Took me a while to figure out what just happened because crows don't normally attack cats. It was some sort of reverse-sting psy-op on the part of the crow, who almost hovered over the cat beating it's wings, offering itself up just beyond the reach of the cats outstretch claws pawing at the air - delaying the cat in the middle of the road with cars coming on fast.

Edit to add: They're tricky buggers those crows. They strategize. They work things out, even in advance as per this case, so it's real thinking that's going on behind those beedie black eyes.

So you like those amazing, mystical blah blah...
These bastards like to peck the sheep their eyes out leaving them dying in agony.
You should rather kill it whenever you see it. Do you love a psychopatic politician because he's smart?