Hi all: Some observations before West Nile gets to them:

Here in the southwest part of Puyallup, between the fairgrounds and
DeCoursey Park, we have three abundant critters-- eastern gray
squirrels, opossums, and crows. Some of our roads are too busy
with traffic, but several of our neighborhood cross streets are
perfect for the crows to take advantage of the road kill. Just enough
cars to keep the table set and just enough time between cars for the
crows to lope out of the way.

Also, we have a lot of very old filbert trees, from the days when this
was all farmland. I have, every year around fair time, been seeing
the crows use the cars for filbert cracking. I'm pretty sure they
started by trying the technique of dropping filberts on the pavement
to crack them, but most of the little nuts just bounce. So, the crows
now line up on the power lines that cross the roads and drop the
filberts as cars are coming through. If the nut bounces out of harms
way into the gutter a crow will wait until the coast is clear and fly
down and retrieve it. Then it will take off and make a little low
swoop-- which has become characteristic-- and drop the nut from a
very low altitude, so it doesn't bounce. I have never seen one just
walk a nut into the road; they always fly them in.

They get really good at this. Sometimes when Clarice and I walk to
the downtown post office we will see them lined up on a power line
and we will walk in the middle of the road and step on the filberts.
After some good crunches we pass on and the crows drop down to
the road for some lunch.

Just the other day I was pulling out of the Subaru dealership onto
River Road, which one would think is much too busy for this game
when, as I was turning right onto the highway, I saw a crow make
this same swoop right in front of my car and drop some little brown
thing. It was so close that if I had not let up on the gas I would have
hit the bird. Immediately my eye caught a movement, and as I
looked left a mouse was running at full speed out from the spot just
in front of my left front tire, across the road. It managed to dodge
the traffic and got away, and I could hear the crow calling out
behind me. I guess it was disgusted that I was such a poor mouse
assassin.

Then I got to thinking-- it would seem that a crow could easily
dispatch a mouse and would not need to endanger itself by flying in
front of a car. What gives here (I'm sure someone here has studied
crow habits). Are the crows hard wired to be scavengers and not
killers of live food? If so-- has my crow transferred its nut behaviour
to ARRANGE for road kill?

All I can say is, when I start seeing gangs of crows herding
possums toward the roads I am going to run home and lock the
doors.

Jerry Broadus, PLS
Geometrix Surveying, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371