Hi Tweets,

Michelle Blanchard writes:

(snip)
>I know, I know, I was interfering in act of nature..but there's too
>damned many crows out here now. I won't go into that again.
(edit)
>trash..sorry, mr. crow, but you aren't having killdeer for breakfast.

How did you know it wasn't the mother?

I'm afraid this occurrence illustrates the principle that one's heart should
be in the right place, but the right place for a heart is not on top of
one's shoulders.

Have you ever examined objectively your hatred of crows, Michelle? If
there's too many of them near you, the greater population in urban or
semi-urban habitats is invariably because humans offer them levels of food
availability they don't get in the wild--uncovered garbage, discarded food
and human habitat destruction eventually all help to raise their numbers.
Why should you blame *them* before accepting your own responsibility as a
habitat-altering human? Are you really justified in making them suffer
violent death or injury because your particular human presence has, in part,
led to their increased population? To extend the logic, would you strew
chocolate bars around a neighborhood and then shoot children for picking
them up?

If your shooting of the crow had been successful, and had you killed it,
then you would have left one crow parent to bring up the half-orphaned
young. As they do naturally, Michelle, crows predate on eggs and young
typically when they have their own young in the nest; as young birds of any
species do, including plovers, nestling crows need large amounts of protein
to develop quickly. After their young fledge, this type of predation greatly
lessens and they consume a more general diet.

Also, if you had successfully orphaned that brood, it's possible that the
adolescent children of that family's parent would have pitched to help the
widow/er, since crows have developed much higher levels of family values
than plovers. Given the North American promotion of 'Famly Values', I've
never understood why crows aren't more widely admired for this exemplary
behavior, as research has shown they actually practice what we humans spend
a lot of breath yapping about but have a chequered history of accomplishing.

Please, Michelle, I beg you to reconsider your attitude to these
fascinating, complex, loyal creatures, and to remember that their parental
dynamic *compels* them to feed their young with whatever prey they can find.
They are not creatures of evil motive, as your post implies but doesn't say
overtly: you tried to kill a parent trying to raise its kids the best it can.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mporice at mindlink.net