This is the only type of bird that can get to my pug’s nerve! Maybe because of the sound they make, my pug interprets it as ‘making fun’ óf him. When Charlie my pug sees them, he becomes hard to subdue and would like to attack every crow he sees. Whether on land or if they’re up the trees, my pug thinks he can fly and give them a piece of his mind.
But I must say that crows are rather quite brutal and anti social. But sometimes I can’t help but feel sorry for them, especially during winter time…because food is scarce, they feed on dogs’ poop. :(
Carrion Crow
Of all birds the carrion crow is the most detested by gamekeepers and country people who rear flocks of poultry, because it is the craftiest of egg thieves. Wild birds also suffer acutely from its depredations.
It is the habit of crows to perch like sentinels on the tops of isolated trees, where they can see what is going on in all directions. When birds are building their nests, their activities are observed and remembered by the watching crow, and in due course many nests are wrecked and robbed.
Later, when trees are more leafy and it becomes harder for the nests to be spotted, the crow is quick to observe other birds carrying food to their young and again he makes his merciless pounce when all has been discovered; this time he takes the chicks.
He may be considered a natural regulator of bird populations and to some extent he plays a useful part in improving the chances of birds which can manage to outwit him.
For many years past I have lived in marshy districts inhabited by a good many crows, which nest unmolested in tall riverside trees. These birds take nearly all the first clutches of duck and moorhen eggs that are laid early in the season. In a cold spring, the chicks which would have hatched from these eggs would in all probability die of starvation, whereas when further clutches of eggs are laid in replacement of those lost, the offspring stand a much better chance of survival.
If a bird loses its first eggs, it usually seeks a better concealed place in which to build its second nest and in any case there is always more natural cover from vegetation later in the spring. In learning to escape the vigilance of crows, birds also avoid the attention of some other predators, such as jays and magpies. They also tend to sit closely on their eggs and leave them, when they have to, with secrecy.
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chef
