strange bird behavior

[Robbi]

never seen anything like this before.......

we have lots of BIG crow like birds here, grey bodys, black wings and head...big sods !

on the way home from work tonight, i saw the usual rows of starlings on the telephone lines, with one of the big crow like birds flying above them when it plunged down and snatched a starling from the wire in it's feet, it then had a controlled decent to the ground where with lots of flapping, the starling managed to escape and flew away,...i've never seen or heard anything like this before.

has anyone else witnessed something like this ?

 

[Geoff Dann]

never seen anything like this before.......

we have lots of BIG crow like birds here, grey bodys, black wings and head...big sods !

Grey bodies?

Not these then?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven

They are carnivores. Happy to scavenge but even happier to catch smaller birds.

 

[Mesquite]

Grey bodies?

Not these then?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven

They are carnivores...

Sounds more like Hooded Crows than Ravens.
Not heard of crows taking live prey like that though

 

[Robbi]

that's the one's....Hooded Crows.....thanks for that

i've never heard of them taking live prey like that either, that's why i mentioned it......most strange.

 

[BarryG]

Never heard of that either. However they are very intelligent, so i guess its possible that it could be learned behavior.

 

[JonathanD]

Hooded crows are awesome predators when they want to be. That was a great sighting to see that behaviour firsthand.

 

[Geoff Dann]

Hooded crows are awesome predators when they want to be. That was a great sighting to see that behaviour firsthand.

I've never heard of them! Just looked them up....there aren't any in England.

 

[Robbi]

i live in Northern Ireland Geoff got LOADS over here !

 

[Toddy]

A hoodie will take anything not tied down if it's a mind to. Clever blighters too.
I watched one in the garden not a fortnight ago eyeing up the hard bread that had lain out all day in the Sun. The pigeons and the blackies had given up on it.
Not the hoodie. Up it swaggered, picked up the biggest bit, and sauntered out to the pond edge.
It dunked the bread into the water and stood there, corvid equivalent of waiting for the kettle to boil, giving it a couple of minutes to soak, and then it just scooped it out and guzzled it in a one. No' daft that bird
They take lambs bit by bit too Hillfarmers often try to thin the hoodie numbers.

Toddy

 

[dwardo]

Amazing birds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZSk7oCNaHg
There are loads of other videos like this.

 

[Barn Owl]

As an aside re Raven.

More and more are actually nesting in with the Rook in Rookeries,also using urban structures like the Peregrine.

 

[Paul_B]

There was something on tv about ravens I think, or could have been another member of the corvidae. Something about one of the biggest populations on Anglesey. Apparently they started going there in the '80s or '90s and have grown ever since due to the varied diet there. Anyway the thing about them was they were all juvenile / adolescent birds and there were no proper adults. After decades of study they now know that the adults fly off leaving a huge creche of the younger birds who all show signs of learning and teaching each other. Seems they weren't learning the same way as most animals and birds but akind if higher intelligence way of learning IIRC.

Although one study was looking at the pellets they also leave after eating like birds of prey. They found a tree where they were laways left and collected them each day. After study they noticed that one or two had a new food waste in them then a day or so later a few more then a couple of days later they were all eating the same thing. Seems one would learn about a new and plentiful food source or how to get a new food source. Then they all learn about it.

Anyway it was all interesting at the time. Clever birds Ravens, like it in them. My favourite Raven sighting was sitting on the steep, grassy slope of Scafell having a snack and a breather when I heard a sort of loud fluttering noise. Well TBH it sounded almost like some propeller cutting through the air. I turned and looked up at it to see a Raven in full glide (almost stationary above my head), slowly moving out and down the hillside. It was less than a metre above my head as I followed it over. Could see al the detail in the feathers on its wings and everything. Was a noisy fly over though with the thermals and wind through its wing. It was the noise its wing made that I remember the most. As I said before I do like ravens. Intelligence and amazing fliers.

I once saw 5 paragliders in the Lakes coming round and over the hill next to the one I was climbing. Anyway they were amazing to watch until a group of crows and two ravens decided to fly in among them. The crows just flew through and off but the Ravens just effortlessly went in among them and wheeled and glided and even flipped over. Jeez! If they had human intelligence (if that is worth having) in my anthromorphising of them I would have to say they were taking the pi$$ out of the paragliders. I mean with flight skills of a Raven anything we humans can do (without powered engines) is paled into insignificance.

 

[mountainm]

I remember an article about crows that had learned to use the traffic lights at a junction. When the lights were on red they'd drag difficult food items out into the road for the cars to crush when the lights turn green. Then on red they went back to harvest the bounty.

Keep an eye on the crows, they're obviously keeping an eye on us.

 

[Angus Og]

Hooded crows in action.

[video=youtube;WQd9kuXpUYU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQd9kuXpUYU[/video]

 

[Paul_B]

Wouldn't surprise me.

I heard from a relative who is not the wind up type and who was being totally serious about this story (not bird related but traffic light and rat related). Anyway he was in a CIty on this busy road waiting at lights when he spotted an old lady waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn to green man. A little before the pedestrian crossing where the cars stop was a rat sat on the kerb. It sat there looking up and as soon as the green ma came up it was off and across the road. Now rats are another critter that has intelligence attributed to it and if the relative is true and saw that then there must be some intelligence there to learn behaviour.

Anyway true or not I like that story. The rat lead the old lady across the road!!

 

[Paul_B]

Cool crows. THeyt kept the fight going!! Not a cat fan sorry but am a crow fan.

 

[_scorpio_]

^ that wouldnt be too hard to learn as long as they dont get squashed trying it. they just have to look at the right bit and wait for it to go green. once animals learn associate one thing with another they get very smart.
would the hooded crows cousin the carrion crow hunt in the same way? or does their name reflect their diet?

 

[Harvestman]

Corvids are very clever. I remember there were reports of jackdaws surviving in towns during one of the really bad winters we had then by hanging around outside chip shops and eating the discarded greasy wrappers.

My own recollection is of doing a three day pond dipping event in a local park. We had every primary school in the county come along to the event, at half hour intervals. By the end of the second day the crows had learned the timing and as soon as each group had left they would fly down to the pond and walk a circuit around it, picking up discarded tadpoles, beetles and so on. By the end of the third day I doubt there was anything left alive in the margins of those ponds.