Hi Tweets,

Dave Nunnalee writes: "Oh, did I mention that the hot tub has a
small, 1-ft tall window pane around the top of the wall? The crows were
forcing the grosbeaks to crash into the window. When a stunned bird fell to
the ground a crow would drop down, stand on it to hold it down, and peck it
to death. It would then make a meal of the grosbeak."

In Toronto, Ontario, the Ring-billed Gulls have learned to do the same to
Rock Pigeons, to drive them into the glass windows of downtown office
towers. I learned this from an article about two decades ago in the Brit
journal, New Scientist, in an article entitled 'Jonathan Livingston
Asshole', a delicious little riff on the inspirational New Age hit of the
day, `Jonathan Livingston Seagull`.

Locally, the resident GW`s have not yet learned this trick, but it would be
interesting to see a.) if they figure it out for themselves in downtown
Vancouver, say, which has no shortage of large office towers or, b.) it`s an
importable, transferable skill from RB`s elsewhere.

Clearly a learned behavior but, in either case, one of them had to have the
idea first, then work it out in practice. Shows yet again to me that genius
is not restricted to humans.

cheers

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
loblollyboy at gmail.com

Every answer deepens the mystery.
- E.O. Wilson
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