In my experience, crows are generally not normal prey for diurnal raptors.
At least not in our area here in western WA.

However, it might help to imagine what it is like for these birds of prey
in December.

Obviously, in winter, it is colder which requires more caloric intake to
stay warm. Hawks have to hunt, kill and eat more to survive now than in
summertime
.
The days are shorter, giving them less time each day to procure their food.
In contrast, this works to the advantage of the nocturnal owls.

Hawks, and especially Bald Eagles, often congregate in areas with a high
density of prey to hunt and may experience more competition from other
raptors for scarce prey.

Once caught, the prey is often pirated by competitors, especially if you
are an inexperienced juvenile.

Prey species themselves are more experienced and probably in most cases,
harder to catch.

So things are pretty intense for hawks right now. In fact, those juveniles
that can't meet these demands are dying out there right now.

As a result, hawks, and other predators, are unlikely to pass up a chance
to take any kind of prey that presents itself. As long as it is not too
costly to obtain.

After all, protein is protein.

Keep in mind that hawks can't go to Safeway for their food like you.

Having said all that, there are specific individual raptors that will
specialize on a certain prey species like crows.

A falconer will call this process "wedding" the hawk to a particular prey
species.

I recall Steve Herman telling me about a wild peregrine, I believe at Long
Beach, WA (sorry Steve), that specialized in cutting off crows unwise
enough to fly out over the ocean. It was a crow specialist.

At a peregrine eyrie (nest) in the San Juans, where we banded young, one of
the adults was also a crow specialist. When we entered the site, the
ledge was littered with a thick mat of plucked crow feathers. Oddly enough,
we rarely saw crow remains in other peregrine nests. But this one was
filled with them.

This particular pair also liked to catch Pigeon Guillemots, one of my
favorite birds and one I always thought of as perfect prey for peregrines.
But again, we rarely saw them as prey in other peregrine nests for some
unknown reason. But there were several in this particular site as evidenced
by several little "glowing" red legs.

So if you see a hawk of any kind eating a crow, I'd say that is fairly rare.

Nice sighting.


Bud Anderson
Falcon Research Group
Box 248
Bow, WA 98232
(360) 757-1911
falconresearch at gmail.com
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