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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Good Fences, Good Crows

I tend to feel sorry for crows. They are much maligned and not at all sought after when we go out birding. Crows seem to be harsh in nature and chase the smaller birds from the garden. They have a strident call which grates on the nerves. They seem to breed incessantly too and if not controlled, crows can cause the local bird population to disappear. We found this to be true on a Mozambican island holiday. We'd gone there to snorkel and of course to bird. There was not one of the bird species offered in the tour catalog; instead there were hundreds and hundreds of crows.  I'm not sure about the next allegation: but perhaps they also raid nests of fledglings and eggs? 

Anyway, the long and the short of it is crows aren't much loved by birders.  

However,  last weekend it was  a pair of crows who created an ideal opportunity for me to get photos of fences, which is the purpose of this post. When we rounded the explosives magazine on Sunday morning, Grant stopped and pointed at a pied crow eating something off a small bank inside the barbed enclosure. 
The fuzzy line across the crow's body is part of the barbed wire fence
Crows eat anything and everything so I'm not sure what this bird was enjoying so intensely
The barbed wire fence is more visible in this photo
The crow in the first photos walked off the screen to the right; immediately another crow strode into the picture
A crow struts confidently along the ridge

I'm linking my post to TexWisGirl 's Good Fences Thursday which you can visit here

Here's wishing you all a very Happy Thursday!

15 comments:

  1. i like your pied crows! i know they can be destructive to other species but i like them, too. of course, we're not overrun with them. we have a great family unit or two around. thanks, jo!

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  2. I'm one who doesn't like crows much. I do admire their intelligence but that's where it stops. I've just learned that Zanzibar doesn't have as many tropical flowers as one would expect due to the crows (brought there several centuries ago). The crows destroy the eggs and leave fewer birds to pollinate flowers. Probably this has happened in more places than expected.

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  3. I quite like to watch the Ravens, like crows from the Corvid family. Very smart. But haven't noticed them causing a decrease in other birds.

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  4. Great shots!! They look like the ones that hang around our street, peering down from the telephone poles and looking for food!! Hope you have a great weekend, Jo!!

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  5. Since becoming a birder I have taken much more interest in Crows and like photographing them. They are very clever birds and do get a bad press. I like your images of them around the wire.

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  6. Your crows have a white tummy ours are black all over.

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  7. Hello JO, I like the Pied Crow. They are smart birds, they spook off my song birds when coming to my feeders.. Great fence shots, have a happy day!

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  8. looks like they don't mind that razor wire fence at all... our crows are all smut black, yours have a little white on them. they are the noisy birds around, they cry Ha Ha Ha all day here and we have hundreds of them. i did not know they kill other birds, had not heard that.

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  9. Caw! Caw! Very commanding little guy! Ouch on that fence though!

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  10. Crows here are jet black. They stop off in my yard occasionally. Usually I see them flying west in the morning and then east again in the evening. Apparently there's quite a rookery where they spend the night east of here. I've read that they are the smartest birds, have been known to use their own tools, and can recognize faces of humans they have encountered before.

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  11. Never seen a crow with a white front. Love the barb wired fencing!

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  12. Wonderful shots of the crow, and I like the fence, too.

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  13. You are right. People don't seem to like crows. That doesn't seem to bother the crows though.

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  14. Love these photos! Crows are so under-rated, but I love them. They are so smart and comical. I am so happy to see them visit my garden in winter, when they will cautiously come to my birdfeeders. I always talk to them softly when I see them, so that they know I'm friend, not foe.

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  15. I really like crows. They're very clever and form strong family units. But it's never good when something upsets the balance of nature and entire species disappear from an area.
    I do like your photos of the Pied Crows.

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Thank you for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback. Jo