Today was a fine day for a marine critter trip out to Camano Island State
Park. A couple of crows were yelling and swooping on a perched eagle who
sat for several minutes suffering corvid abuse. Then just as one of the
birds made a dive the eagle opened its wings and sort of jumped and flipped
off the branch, clearly intending mayhem on the crow. The crow dodged out of
the way and then the tables turned as the eagle chased the crow down the
beach. The crow made a suddenly right turn into the shrubs and the eagle
kept flying. I had a group of students with me when this happened and they
all cheered on the eagle. We had a good day finding various tidal critters
and putting them into containers. At one point one of the containers which
had some blenny's (an eel like intertidal fish) got left behind and a crow
moved right in, fished around the container with its beak and came up with a
blenny. Two other crow were watching and flew in a direct line to the
container but a student saw the action and intervened on behalf of the
totally exposed and helpless fish. The crows stuck around us the rest of
the morning, perhaps waiting for another opportunity or just knowing how
much food students lose from their lunch on the beach. As we were walking
back to the bus a red-winged blackbird went up after a crow, the crow flew
up, disturbed a Red-tail hawk and then gave it chase. The blackbird did not
give up either and so we had a parade of chasers chasing chasers.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer, Teacher
Snohomish County