When it comes to crows do not discount activity motivated by boredom. The
whole Corvidae family is intelligent and so needs things to do. Mobbing an
eagle certainly can qualify as something exciting to do. Mobbing a bird
that is actually more powerful and more dangerous than them increases the
entertainment value. (Gatherings of crows have always reminded me of the
eighth grade students that I used to teach.
I think that mobbing does encourage social awareness. Increases their group
awareness and crows are certainly social critters.
I once watched a pair of crows and a Red-tailed Hawk. The Red-tailed was
sitting about 100 feet from the pair of crows. One of the pair of crows was
flying around the other crow vocalizing at it repeatedly. The sitting crow
seemed to ignore the flying crow. The flying crow finally stopped flying
around the sitting crow and went over to harass the red-tail. I was
convinced that the flying crow was trying to convince the sitting crow to
join it in the harassment of the hawk.

Jim Rosso



At 12:07 PM 11/17/99 -0800, david b. williams wrote:
>To Tweeters,
>
>I have been watching crows mob an eagle and wondered why. I have read
>that crow's harassment is proactive, alerting other crows to the
>predator and showing inexperienced juveniles which predator might eat
>them. Mobbing might also discourage the predator from hanging around or
>from like attacking. Any other reasons for this behavior?
>
>I have also read that birds are motivated to mob by fear and anger, as
>well as in some cases a kind of compulsive attraction. One author
>compared this action to "that which prompts many humans to gather and
>stare at accident victims or to look at, and very often also to tease or
>torment, any captive or helpless animal of a species they fear." Is this
>mere speculation? Again, any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>David Williams
>Seattle
>

Jim Rosso
Issaquah, Washington
Home - 425-392-8440

mail:jrosso at mediaseek.com