A Friendly Murder

 

No worries, dear Reader; I refer in my title to a “murder” of crows.

It all began when I read about an experiment conducted with crows in order to determine whether they would recognize individual humans. Not only can they distinguish one human from another, they also, it turns out, are capable of holding a grudge for a prolonged period of time. You can see the results of that experiment in this short video here.

Following that, I found another video which demonstrated how crows either believe in a barter system or are simply and sincerely grateful when humans offer gifts. In return for food, they will eventually offer gifts. You can see that video here.

Jenny the Cat perches on my kitchen table every morning (after her early morning patrol of the perimeter of the property), watching the “big squawky birds” and making that adorable chittering sound cats make when they watch birds. The crows come by every morning about 7:00a.m. to eat the snails and slugs from my neighbor’s yard, and we watch them hop around, squabble over territory, and steal from each other, shouting epithets in crow-speak. I decided, after seeing the two above mentioned videos, to enhance the entertainment value for Jenny and possibly make a crow friend or two myself by feeding them peanuts. (I purchased peanuts in the shell from Chewy.com that are intended for animal consumption. Never feed your local wildlife human food, please.)

That’s when the fun began.

It only took one day and the tossing out of a couple peanuts for a couple of crows to become curious, swooping down and strutting around the peanuts, tilting their heads and eyeing them suspiciously. Then one guy grabbed a goober, flew up to the neighbor’s rooftop, and began pecking away.

The next morning, both crows were there at 7:00 sharp, waiting. I threw down a couple peanuts and retreated to the house. They flew down, each taking one, and flew off to eat them.

That was three months ago.

Now every morning there are no less than ten crows waiting—not so patiently—at 7:00.

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

It’s like Trick or Treat; I count the number of crows and dole out that same number of peanuts, lobbing them out into the street, then returning to the house to watch the birds at the buffet.

So far, not a single one of those ungrateful bastards has left me a gift. However, Jenny’s enjoyment at their antics nearly matches mine. Here’s what I’ve seen:

Like humans, there is always a bold leader, first to fly down from his perch on the street light and grab a peanut. Conversely, there is the last guy, a small crow who looks on nervously, not sure if it’s safe to descend, often waiting until it’s too late to get a peanut. Because there is the one guy who is never content with just one. He picks up one in his beak, then hops quickly to another peanut, trying to cram that one in as well, often dropping the first peanut in the process. Most days, he is not satisfied until he has somehow shoved two in this beak, at which point he flies to the peak of the neighbor’s roof and drops them, frequently losing the extra one as it rolls down onto the ground. Greed is not an attractive look for anyone, and “Hey, Pal,” I tell him, “you can’t take it with you, can you?”

At any rate, I am still waiting for the day when I will come out in the morning, my fist full of peanuts, to find one of them has left me some shiny trinket. (I guess that’s my own form of greediness, isn’t it?) When that happens, you’ll be the first to know. After Jenny, of course.