Crows

[Terence McCann]

That's heartening. What's the bad side of crow, other than eating it?

Do crows have a bad side? I mean, other than lice and stuff......

They are very skilled at raiding farmers crops.

Stone the crows.

[kurt]

My grandpa would collect black walnuts in the trunk of his buick, let them get blackish, load them in the ruts of two tracks on his farm, and drive back and forth over them to bust them out of their husk. Pick thru the brown mush, pluck out the hard nuts; he had butchers gloves stained dark walnut.

He'd open them up and can about 4-5 quarts of black walnut meats each winter.

It'd take him all winter.

[Terence McCann]

In our national park there are walnuts a plenty. My wife and I took a few shopping bags home with us to harvest. After 2 weeks we pitched 'em, decided that buying in bulk had its merits, and never looked back.

[hausdok]

They're even smarter than that.

Down at the old place there's an old walnut grove. Every year my wife and I would go out there in September and use a long stick to knock down walnuts. Right now, if I go down there, I bet the sidewalks and drive are littered with walnuts that the crows have been opening.

How can I be sure it's the crows? Well, unless walnuts can sprout wings and fly or squirrels are dumb enough to throw their harvest away, it's crows. The condominium is three stories high and the top landings, which are concrete, are open to the sky and are higher than the walnut trees. Squirrels are never seen up there.

Every year you have to go out in the morning and sweep up the walnut residue and when you do you end up pissing off some hard-working crow that had been working on getting one cracked open. They would literally pick them up, fly over the drive or walk and drop them on the hard surface to crack them open. If they didn't get it cracked open the first time, they'd pick it up and repeat the process until the thing cracked open. Smartest damn bird you'll every see; they've got problem solviing skills.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[hausdok]

My grandpa would collect black walnuts in the trunk of his buick, let them get blackish, load them in the ruts of two tracks on his farm, and drive back and forth over them to bust them out of their husk. Pick thru the brown mush, pluck out the hard nuts; he had butchers gloves stained dark walnut.

He'd open them up and can about 4-5 quarts of black walnut meats each winter.

It'd take him all winter.

Yeah, my wife drove me nuts with those things. She'd collect a couple of gunny sacks full, keep the sacks wet until the husks had blackened and were falling off and then I'd have to do battle with those sacks to get them shucked. Then she'd dry them out, crack 'em open and freeze the insides. When you figure what labor's worth, it seems like an awful lot of work to get the equivalent of a 2 gallon jar of shelled walnuts. I used to tell her those were the most expensive walnuts on the planet.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Brad Manor]

Plenty of crows around here. This is from Wikipedia, Essex is about 15 minutes from my place:

"Essex is known regionwide for its large crow population. It is speculated that the town was founded adjacent to a massive crow rookery that, despite efforts to destroy or relocate the nesting ground, thrives to this day. Strangely, the crows boundaries seem tightly closed around the town; though the birds will occasionally venture into surrounding areas."

On any given day (ok, every given day) you'll see thousands of them, but only in Essex.

-B

[hausdok]

Yeah,

Same here in Kenmore. Every night, the last half hour before dusk they start returning from all over the place and clustering in the trees and on the power lines all over Kenmore. Noisy as all get out. There's another rookery in a grove of trees on the other side of Bothell about six miles from here. I've been over there on inspections when that population returns. They cut down half that grove for a development and they cluster along the ridges of the new houses now.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Bain]

In our national park there are walnuts a plenty. My wife and I took a few shopping bags home with us to harvest. After 2 weeks we pitched 'em, decided that buying in bulk had its merits, and never looked back.

That escapade likely violated at least a dozen Federal laws. Now that you've admitted your crime on a public forum, U.S. Marshalls are almost assuredly gonna be knock, knock, knockin' on your door.

I'll come visit you in the hokey . . .

[hausdok]

In our national park there are walnuts a plenty. My wife and I took a few shopping bags home with us to harvest. After 2 weeks we pitched 'em, decided that buying in bulk had its merits, and never looked back.

That escapade likely violated at least a dozen Federal laws. Now that you've admitted your crime on a public forum, U.S. Marshalls are almost assuredly gonna be knock, knock, knockin' on your door.

I'll come visit you in the hokey . . .

Maybe not,

If he didn't exceed the allowed take, there's probably no foul. They allow folks to forage in the national forests out here but they've got limits on just about everything. For instance, my wife gathers fiddle head ferns every year in large numbers. I read about a lady being fined a while back and her ferns were confiscated after she'd violated the allowed limit.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Terence McCann]

In our national park there are walnuts a plenty. My wife and I took a few shopping bags home with us to harvest. After 2 weeks we pitched 'em, decided that buying in bulk had its merits, and never looked back.

That escapade likely violated at least a dozen Federal laws. Now that you've admitted your crime on a public forum, U.S. Marshalls are almost assuredly gonna be knock, knock, knockin' on your door.

I'll come visit you in the hokey . . .

Someone hacked my account and posted that - damn them. I would never remove walnuts, mushrooms or blackberries from the national park.

[gpdewitt]

We have dozens of them around here, population seems stable.

They are an amazingly intelligent bird. Been observed waiting for traffic to clear at a busy intersection and then dropping nuts on the pavement where the car tires go. Then they wait for a car to crack the nut and move on, and collect the meat. There's a Youtube video of this somewhere. Around my neighborhood, they mostly live on leftover fast food from bags tossed from cars.

I have also seen a crow and a falcon fighting over territory. The crow deferred to the falcon, then flew over to a tree that had many crows in it. A couple minutes later, a large flock of them flew up from the tree and chased the falcon away. Birds working together as a group. Amazing.

[kurt]

They would work in groups when taking apart squirrel nests. I've also seen them work in groups to push a hawk out of an area.

Interesting story about the nut cracking with cars.

[Bill Kibbel]

I don't have any interest in crows. Raptors are fascinating to me. I spent Saturday hiking Hawk Mountain with the family. http://www.hawkmountain.org/

[John Kogel]

I don't have any interest in crows. Raptors are fascinating to me. I spent Saturday hiking Hawk Mountain with the family. http://www.hawkmountain.org/

We camped at the mouth of the San Juan River, Vancouver Island, recently and watched this Osprey (Fish Hawk) diving for fish. He made about 12 dives with a lot of circling and flapping before he flew off into the trees. Hopefully he caught something. I don't think they can hunt for anything else, so no fish, no food. In the second pic, he's got his head turned, looking down with one eye.

Click to Enlarge

11.79 KB

Click to Enlarge

18.53 KB

At low tide, about 30 crows arrived, worked the tideline for something in the seaweed, crabs, maybe, then they scattered off to raid campsites and pick up road kill. They can diversify their diet.

[Douglas Hansen]

We've taken up birding as an age-appropriate hobby, and like Bill we are fascinated by raptors. One of our favorite movies is Winged Migration. Reading this convinced me to add it to the Netflix queue again.

[kurt]

You keep a life list?

I've been an amateur birder since I was about 12.......still haven't had a confirmed sight on a Kirtland's Warbler.....I may never get there.

[Les]

I have known people that spend great sums of money to see the Kirtland Warbler. Most never get a glimpse. I know folks that know folks that claim they have seen one!