As to the crows/bag incident, I have seen several times in Monroe, at both
the Monroe Shopping Center and the Fred Meyer shopping center, crows landing
and breaking open grocery bags left unattended. In fact, just to test this
out, I had a group of my students double bag up some stale bread, put it on
a grocery cart then walk away. We watched from about 50 feet away, and timed
them. I can't put my finger on that particular field note but from memory it
was under two minutes before a couple were tearing it out. They made short
work of the bag, and then it was a riot of crows all over the bread, as the
two were pretty immediately joined by a whole bunch more. Next time I do
that (coming up soon as crow behavior is an interesting spring study) I will
take some pictures. The thing I find very interesting is that crows perch
high and apparently keep tabs on each other, always alert in case somebody
down the way finds something worth stealing, er...sharing.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Scott Atkinson
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 9:26 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: crow antics


Tweeters:

Just wanted to forward a crow story from the commute today. Crows have
always seemed brazen and really adapted to human conditions, but today I was
surprised to watch a bird land atop a jeep that had just rolled to a stop at
a light, right in front of me. I guess it must have liked the clear plastic
cover over the back, because it hopped all about it, to the consternation of
the driver. When the light turned, it stayed for a second as the jeep moved
forward, but then flew as it was losing balance. Very funny! It reminded
me of another episode last spring, when I watched a group of 5 crows land on
some stacked bags of beauty bark at the Fred Meyer in Everett. Amazingly,
the birds jabbed and pierced open two bags with their bills--to what end I
have no idea, as they did not fly off with pieces.

Scott Atkinson
Lake Stevens
mail to: scottratkinson at hotmail.com

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