Hi, Tweeters,

I had two male American Goldfinches show up at my feeders today. That made
the day seem a little brighter, despite the rain. Not long afterwards, a very
small Sharpshinned Hawk made an appearance. He dashed after a house finch but
missed, and then spent the next ten minutes flying from one feeder to
another, looking for birds, I suppose.
But the most interesting thing is something I've never seen crows do before,
and want to ask the opinions of the birders out there.

My desk in my office at work faces a window. This way I can keep an eye on
the birds. There's been a pair of crows hanging around in the oaks just
outside my building. Yesterday I observed them mating. Both times they mated
on the ground, which I thought unusual, however, I don't recall ever seeing
crows mate before, so what do I know.
Today, I saw THREE crows out in the same area. I'm assuming the mating pair
was the same pair as yesterday. All three were on the ground. Two crows were
mating and a third was standing about ten feet from the pair. The pair
disengaged, so to speak, and the male immediately flew over to the watching
crow and mounted her, much to her distress. (I'm assuming the third bird was
a female). She raised one hell of a ruckus as the male bird mounted her, and
there was a lot of wing flapping and yelling by the female bird. She was
obviously struggling to get out from under the male. The first female then
flew over, pecked at the unfortunate female who was yelling, and then she
(female number one) flew off. When the male dismounted, the second female
hopped away a couple feet from the male and roused but didn't fly. The male
then took off, flying in the direction of the first female. After a few
moments, the second female flew up into one of the oaks and merely sat there
for almost ten minutes before she, too, flew off.
What happened here? Was this a rape? What did I witness? I know that crows
are monogamous, so what happened? Any ideas, anybody???

Michelle
MBlanchrd at aol.com
Oly, WA