Saw G-S today & a Helpful Crow yesterday

A charitable crow ...

Yesterday, while feeding the crows at South Seward Waterfront Park, I noticed MaxiGap sitting on a sign post for what seemed like a long time. At first I tossed food around her but when she did not fly down to get any of it I realized she was 'working' - doing sentry duty. When I was almost out of food and ready to head home she was still doing sentry duty so i decided to try to offer her some food by hand with her staying on the post by piling some food in my palm and staying low with only my palm raised up to just below her level.

I was approaching very slowly and had first called her name a couple of times and held out my palm for her to see the food to make sure she knew I was trying to feed her. I kept my palm in the air as I approached her post, and when I was only about 2 steps away another crow that was watching us flew to the post and took over sentry duty. The crow understood what was going on and took over for her! MaxiGap flew to the ground in front of me ready to receive my gift. :)

It was really cool to watch the other crow behaving cooperatively and helping MaxiGap by giving her a chance to eat the treat (she'd already had a small bit of bread earlier when I first arrived but now i was offering her meat). I know the crows take turns doing sentry duty, but this time it seemed obvious that the crow who had been watching understood the situation and therefore chose that moment to relieve her of duty. I am guessing it realized that 1) I was trying to feed MaxiGap and 2) I was not going to just toss the food on the ground giving other crows a chance to eat it (so there was no point in the crow loitering on the ground)

Crows are so wonderfully intelligent and sociable!

I know some of the crows are aware that I try extra hard to make sure MaxiGap gets something to eat besides seed each time i come. A few will take what is akin to the defensive position used in playing ball - hovering crowding blocking and basically sticking to her like glue ready to catch the pass once they notice that I have moved closer to her. It is funny, but frustrating! Makes it much harder to get the food to her. She, like Mangled Foot was, is much more cautious in general so it is hard to get close enough to make it easy to throw the food without it being intercepted .



Whenever I feed the crows I try to bring something easier than seed to eat for MaxiGap because she is disabled with a deformed beak and foot which makes it harder for her to open a sunflower seed shell to get to the seed itself. I also try to bring enough so that we can fail to complete the "pass" numerous times and still have enough to keep trying until she catches the food before other birds (crows and gulls) snatch it. It usually takes several tries, sometimes as many as 8 to 10, before MaxiGap gets any of the food I throw to her.

Once she (he?) and I have made eye contact she knows I will keep trying to throw the food to her until she catches it or I run out of food, which sometimes happens and is always sad for me. She recognizes when I am trying to distract the other crows by throwing a bit of food in another direction - she will not chase it like most of the other crows , but will stay put and wait - and normally i immediately throw something to her :) She tries to get clear of the other crows and gulls sometimes, but is not as adept at it as MangledFoot was. .

A member of her family I have been labeling in photos as White-White also has a damaged right foot - looks like the bands became wedged too far down on her foot and broke some toes. I noticed her this summer at the wooded campground with a nest at the north end of the circle - not MaxiGap's mate but they are almost always near each other and clearly in the same family group.

Much to my excitement I recently discovered she has a red band underneath the white band on the right foot! I have always known the silver band was still there and just hidden by the white band on the left foot (I have never known a bird to escape the metal band), but I had no idea she still had the colored band that would identify her. I know the band order because I see WhiteRedWhiteSilver every time i feed the crows so White/White with the mangled foot is actually Red/White-White/Silver! I thought she had died!

Goodness, there is so much i want to write, but I write so slowly! Lately i have noticed banded crows i thought were long gone and there are at least 2 that have escaped all of their colored bands and only have the silver metal band left. Today I saw a crow with only a green band - at one point i thought I had imagined it because i could not find it again, but just before I left to go home i spotted it again. There are others and I have decided to start carrying my camera again to try to get their photos.

I also discover last night that I still have many many unlabeled photos of banded crows. I thought I had almost caught up.

I still sometimes consider methods I could use to get the collection to Carolyn but I had alwasy hoped to have them labeled and organized first. Now I think that will never happen!

I again looked at pics of Mangled Foot's Bully Boy and tried to see if i could spot him today. His beak is a bit different from most but you have to see it at certain angles in order to tell. I did not see him. I have wondered if that was their offspring i found squashed in the road last August.

*sigh* Tired and will have to attach photos later. Much later.

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