Hi Tweets,

Alma Johnson writes, re crow/robin interaction:

>What is the crow doing? Eating eggs? Eating hatchlings?

The crow is a nesting adult foraging for high-protein food such as eggs or
young to feed its young while they're in the nest to help them grow quickly;
once they're fledged, it usually feed them, and teach them to find, a more
general diet, though it and they won't later pass up a nestful of eggs or
young if opportunity arises. Incidentally, that incessant plaintive cawing
in the trees signals a hungry, begging young crow, and the strangled
gargling at the end of such a long sequence of such caws indicates Mom or
Pop has arrived back with the goodies and about time.

Robins do the same, except one of their preferred foods to feed nest-bound
young is earthworms.

>Can I do anything to
>keep it away? The nest is too high in the tree for me to reach.

On a general level, Alma, you are seeing competition between two species for
survival. It's easy to demonise the crow, though it's only trying to provide
for its own children; equally easy to sympathise with the robin trying to
protect its kids from the crow. Either involves playing favorites. It would
be good if you could see this type of interaction in the larger context of
ecological relationship, understanding that a) the great urban population
explosion of crows has been due to human activity and b) crows have been
feeding their nest-bound young with eggs and young of other birds ever since
they began to be crows. It's their nature, not villainy, which compels them.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery, and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)