More on Mabel August 02 2019, 0 Comments
Mabel and I go back a long way. When I first met her, she and George were a couple, and they visited my garden several times a day … for years. I wrote about them a lot in earlier blogs: their love story, their very tough year, the time that George was missing and, finally …
Continue reading More on Mabel
They’re out there now. Full of attitude and completely gormless — you’ll see them staggering around a neighbourhood near you soon. No, not zombies — baby crows. I’ve seen several fledgling crows on our dog walks lately. A lot of them have been taking shelter at the edge of roads, sometimes wedged between parked cars …
Continue reading Fledgling Alert
In our local Crowlandia we’re ricocheting between serenity and stress. Suspense is the name of the game as eggs and hatchlings start to fill the nests. Most days it’s seems really very peaceful. The crows maintain an uncharacteristic hush behind leafy screens, quietly guarding their nests. In April, it was possible to see a pair …
Continue reading Nesting News
It’s taken me a ridiculous length of time to get to this simple little blog . I’m just trying to update you on the WHO, WHAT and WHERE of the local crow families. But it’s complicated! I tried writing it all in words and it was confusing even me, so I decided we needed a …
Continue reading A Puzzlement of Crows
My mother had a storehouse of wonderful sayings — one for every occasion, really. If I was looking particularly unkempt (a look I actively cultivated in my hippy days, but that’s an entirely different story) she’d say I looked as if I’d been “dragged through a hedge backwards.” Sometimes, at the end of a particularly hard …
Continue reading Dishevelled Crows
Watch for the last few seconds of this baby crow self-grooming video. I think he’s auditioning for his own show on Comedy Network. It has been a bit quiet in the neighbourhood of late. That’s all changed with the advent of the corvid triplets. They do not keep their feeling to themselves. When hungry …
Continue reading Noisy New Neighbours
The neighbourhood is alive with all kinds of baby bird noises. Loudest of all, naturally, are the baby crows. Here is a sample of some of the hilarious baby crow moments I’ve had the joy to observe in the last few days of dog walking. I’m very lucky that Geordie is a patient sort of …
Continue reading Real Baby Crows of East Van
The neighbourhood is alive with all kinds of baby bird noises. Loudest of all, naturally, are the baby crows. Here is a sample of some of the hilarious baby crow moments I’ve had the joy to observe in the last few days of dog walking. I’m very lucky that Geordie is a patient sort of …
Continue reading Real Baby Crows of East Van
You may (or may not) have been wondering where in the blogosphere I’ve gotten to for the last few months. Well, puppy training is surprisingly time consuming … and then there has been my City Crow Calendar project. The puppy training and the cat/dog peace treaty are both, by the way, going well. But for a while it looked as if …
Continue reading The Crow Calendar is Coming
You may (or may not) have been wondering where in the blogosphere I’ve gotten to for the last few months. Well, puppy training is surprisingly time consuming … and then there has been my City Crow Calendar project. The puppy training and the cat/dog peace treaty are both, by the way, going well. But for a while it looked as if …
Continue reading The Crow Calendar is Coming
The summer of 2015 had been a rough one for crows. Actually it’s been tough for urban wildlife of all kinds, but since I watch the crows so much, I’ve been feeling their pain especially. Raising fledglings is hard work at the best of times – constant feeding, along with perpetual vigilance against the usual dangers – racoons, …
Continue reading Crowpocalypse 2015
Here’s Hank June 26 2015, 0 Comments
First there was Eric. Then there was Hank. Now there are Hank and Eric and Vera and Eric’s mate and some babies. That’s a lot of crows for a small area, but they seem to have worked out a way to keep things civil. They key is that certain rules have to be adhered to. Eric and …
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Meet Vera May 30 2015, 0 Comments
Vera is a little nervous around the camera, but not as phobic as this photo would suggest. She was actually enjoying a good scratch! She and her partner (Hank) are one of many young couples starting out and trying to raise a family here in East Vancouver. The two of them started hanging out in my garden …
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Dive bombing crows are in the news again. A scary experience for pedestrians, but it may help to know why they do it. Imagine this. You and your sleep-deprived spouse have just had triplets. A few days after they’re born they have the mobility capacity of toddlers — combined with the burning desire to see the …
Continue reading Look out – Crow!
It started as a normal Monday in East Vancouver. The dawn made it’s spectacular appearance (an hour late due Daylight Savings). Birds began to reappear in the sky, taking their posts for the coming day. Eric and his family arrived at their spot — in my garden, waiting for the first peanut handout of the day. I …
Continue reading Just Another Day
Who Is Eric? November 19 2014, 0 Comments
Well, I’m sure he has a different self-image entirely, but this is his CV from my perspective. Eric, first of all, is a crow. He is, relative to others of his species, quite unconcerned by my camera. In fact, since I use a long lens, I often have to back away from him to keep …
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Crow grooming hilarity. The recipient of the thorough going-over seems happy enough for a while. S/he seems to tire of the process part way through — but there is no way the job is going to go unfinished! I am reminded of my mother polishing my face with a hankie before I headed into elementary school. You can …
Continue reading Sit Still, I Think I Missed a Bit
In a competition judged on cuteness and goofiness, I would have said that crow babies would be the hands-down winners. Until, that is, I came across baby ravens. They are like giant baby crows — with impossibly large feet. This is a series of images in which I’m exploring beauty of these birds in their urban setting. Crows and their …
Continue reading Crow vs Raven
If you have recently been terrorized by seemingly deranged crows — it’s likely because the crows ARE slightly unhinged. Like all new parents they are consumed by the fear that something is going to happen to their newborns. In the case of crows, the danger to their offspring is very real. Strolling along the boulevard, you …
Continue reading Dive Bombed by Crows!
