Tweets,
Make that ?pack of wolves.? I think I posted this at the time, but a couple of years ago we were driving towards Seattle on Bothell Way and stopped at a red light at the Lake Forest Park gas station intersection. There in the road was a circle of 5 or 6 crows surrounding a rat and pecking at it as it ran in all directions trying to escape. I don?t think it did, not that I was sorry.
Penny Koyama, Bothell

From: seasprocket at gmail.com
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2013 10:01 AM
To: Rob Conway
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Scrub Jays or Corvid Wolves?

Rob, thanks for this amazing writeup! A few years ago, I watched a crow as it spent ~20min wearing down a good-sized rat that it had managed to catch in the middle of a road. Every time the rat tried to flee out of the road, the crow deftly (and very carefully) grabbed it by the tail and dragged it back into the middle of the road. Eventually, the rat became exhausted and the crow killed it. Several others then came and joined in the meal. It was incredible to watch.

You are onto something with your corvid/wolf analogy!


fir snag just 80 or so feet away. I'd never seen Scrub Jays attack other birds but these guys looked practiced.