Come A Little Bit Closer
5/12/2012
The crows seem to be coming to my back yard more often. If Minnie layed her eggs around april and it took about 3 weeks for the eggs to hatch, it seems that she must have chicks in the nest by now. Perhaps they will be out of the nest by July? I'm wondering if they will bring them to my backyard? Upon researching baby chicks I couldn't find much about the duration of how long chicks would stay in the nest. Unfortuneatly their is plenty about the more attractive birds online and so little about crows. Crow enthusiast's are few and far between. Often when I mention that I feed crows and I find them interesting, I get vacant stare or a negative reply. I found this site interesting. http://audubonportland.org/backyardwildlife/brochures/crows
Keeping up with daily scraps is getting to feed them is getting difficult because of the squirrels. They are so darn greedy, and right there to grab everything. Considering a crows nature is to be so cautious, they often lose out to the squirrels. I have a mixture of cat kibble, cheap bird seed, and cracked corn, that I throw about the ground. Along with the red and gray squirrels, their are morning doves and bluejays, pecking about the ground. What the crows favor is bread, meat scraps, and pasta. The only thing the squirrels don't get to excited about is the pasta and chicken scraps. I generaaly cook chicken thighs, chop it up and put it in the freezer in small containers for my dog. Then I throw out the bones and often some of the skins for the crows. Once the first crow puts out the word, down they come quickly waddeling over to the place I throw it. They grab that up real quick. All but one crow that walks around and around in uncertainty. When it finally grabs a piece it jumps back and acts like it's taking the chance of being trapped?? The poor crow is lucky if it gets 2 pieces of meat. I have managed to get the central feeding area closer to my window. And it seems they are replying more often to my inadequate crow call. I often wonder what they must think of this squaking, scratchy, caw, caw, caw, cry? Sometimes I hear a crow call back, and sometimes none. When I go back in the house it only takes about 1 minute before I see a crow out there to check out my offerings. It would be nice if I could sit on my deck, while they flew down and started feeding. However when I see them out there, and I walk out to distribute food, they only fly up in a tree close by and watch me. Before they would give out shrill caws and fly off, and be gone for an hour or so. and sometimes half the day would go by before they returned. Now as soon as I come in and retreat to my chair they fly down. I often wonder if they can see me sitting by the window in my chair? Last week I had many errands to do run, I left early in the day and I did not throw out any scraps. When I arrived home lateer in the day, upon getting out of my car I heard a clamoring of crows cawing and flying about the place. It seemed like 10 crows cawing, and it was only 4.Wow I thought they must be passing the word about that I'm home? They seem excited to see me, how nice to be acknowledged. I quickly got some scraps and seeds together and spread them about, and down they came within seconds.
Any food thats left over gets eaten by the racoon or the fox that makes it's daily walk through in the evening. Last week I saw a rabbit and a big black bear walked through the yard. Through the day I get daily visits from the ground hog. I think ground hogs are vegitarions, known for raiding gardens? Racoons look like little bandits, but I find the ground hog to be the cutest rodent. I'm sure I wouldn't feel that way if I had garden.