Subject: Re: ravens and predation...
Date: Jun 18 17:43:43 1995
From: Don Baccus - donb at Rational.COM
Michael Price, crowing all the while, sez:
> That's a pretty ill-tempered and well-fed crow, Don; I can't imagine one
> putting all that energy into snuffing a bird with, comparatively speaking,
> all that meat on it and not chowing down at some point.
> A bad-tempered crow in Seattle
> Gave a starli--mmmmpphhhh.
It was in Portland, actually...but bad-tempered indeed!
There's a remnant victorian in downtown PDX called the Carriage House,
I believe, now the home of a lawfirm. I was driving through town
on my way somewhere, by this place which is a couple stories tall
(much shorter than most of downtown) with a peaked roof.
There was a crow perched on the ridgeline of the roof, with a couple of
dozen starlings on the roof and to some degree fluttering about,
harassing it.
One came too close, afoot rather than alight. The crow just sort of
turned its head over its shoulder and MEGA-PECKED right into the
starlings head. The starling collpased like it'd been shot in
the head rather than pecked, and slid down the roof into the gutter
(the roof's pretty steep).
The other starlings continued harassing it, but at a distance.
So, really, little energy was expended. It was WIERD!
But it was kind of a neat thing to see while waiting for red to
become green!
> Curious: aside from ravens, which N. Amer. crow is most predatory, and under
> what conditions?
If fish crow weren't a bit of a misnomer, I think the answer would
be obvious :)
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>