Monday, June 22, 2009

The Crows

I didn't set out to feed the crows... I merely intended to feed the typical yard birds: cardinals, blue jays, titmice, chickadees, goldfinches, etc.... and those did all show up in abundance, along with a few surprises like bluebirds and indigo buntings and a lone turkey.
Well, the local crow tribe took notice of all the activity and started coming to dine at my daily seed buffet. I don't mind a bit, in fact I'm quite pleased since I find crows very fascinating and beautiful birds, and they've inspired a lot of my artwork.

They swing by at least once (that I notice) on most days, there are usually 4 or 5, sometimes joined by a 6th. Two of them are babies/juveniles.... with full feather suits grown but still have stray bits of downy fuzz, pinkness at the corners of the beaks, and are a tad ungraceful yet (which of course just increases their charm). They feed themselves but still exhibit the baby-begging behavior at times. Mom/dad seem to be pretty much done with the spoon-feeding.

It has been exceptionally hard to photograph them, they see *every* little movement. I had to wrap my face and sneak to the window like a ninja to catch these shots. Two of them still spotted me videoing and flew about 40 feet away, while the others didn't seem to notice or care.


I'm pretty sure they live in the woods behind our house because they're always around and I can often hear them calling to each other. The babies can be quite noisy!

3 comments:

Wear Your Wild said...

Great video! I love crows. We have quite a few around here.
Almost full grown birds look so funny begging for food from their parents. Our Mockingbirds always do that.

Jen said...

They are indeed fun to watch, I spend(waste) a lot of time peeping out the window watching all the birds :-)
Thanks for checking out my video!

Anonymous said...

Crows are awesome! :) They are such wonderful personalities!....As one of my personal totems, it's been incredible to watch them not only as animals, but to experience them as messengers....