The great Crow Buddy Project has entered a new phase.
We’ve been working on personal crows for years. There were always a few around, and it became clear that they were the same few. Just because all the world’s crows look a lot alike doesn’t mean they’re interchangeable. They’re specific crows. A family. And we knew they recognized us and knew a lot about us.
We knew that because everybody knows that by now. You can read all about it. As far as our crows were concerned, though, if they did know a lot about us, they weren’t impressed.
Initially, we were aiming high. We not only wanted crows to come get our walnuts, we wanted them to ask for them, preferably when we had company. We walked around the yard with our nuts out yelling HEY, WALNUT BOY! Ultimately we wanted our crows to yell Hey Walnut Boy at us—you know, with an accent—when we were entertaining on the patio. We aimed too high. They did not give one goopy shit about us. What dopes, they thought. Walking around saying the same damn thing over and over, they thought.
But a few years later they either came around a teeny tiny bit or their kids did. We switched over to peanuts and before long they started landing clankily on the gutters when we went outside. We tossed peanuts ever closer and closer to ourselves and finally achieved Proximal Personal Crows who might get within three feet of us for a peanut on a good day, and who, more importantly, began doing swoopities to get our attention. I admit: it felt good. It felt affirming. If we were walking back from the grocery store, when we’d get to our own block there’d be a swoopity and a crow would dip right in front of us, adjourn to the power lines, and wait for the peanut. All our pockets have peanuts in them. So does our washing machine.
Nobody said nothing about no Walnut Boy. We settled for being swoopited at. It was an acknowledgment, at least.
There are four. Dickens and DooDah are the main team and there are two auxiliary crows we assume are their kids. Even if we launch enough peanuts for each one, the younger ones hang back. One in particular never gets a peanut, not ever. If he tries for one he gets stapled on the head instead and Mommy gets two peanuts. Poor Booboo.
Dickens and DooDah are occupied making new crows again. Now we have just one regular crow in the garden. It’s Booboo! The kid could’ve helped out with the new brood—they’ll do that—but this one the hell didn’t. He is strutting in our yard like he owns the title.
Where you going? DooDah wants to know.
Out.
What are you going to do?
Nothing. Booboo stretches one wing, scratches his head, and drifts off. You stay on them eggs, Mommo, he mutters under his beak. Imma get mine.
I knew he was different when he marched right up to me on the back porch and stared at me. Pointedly, which is how they stare. I went inside for a peanut and came out and he was still there. Without a doubt this is our friend with the dented head. He’s been watching all along. He thinks we’re cool. And he thinks the world owes him a lot of back pay in peanuts.
Now he comes within a foot of us for a peanut. It’s not asking out loud. But when you’re courting, you take what you can get.
So now that he’s a foot away I’m aiming higher. Intimacy. Specifically, I would like to be able to scritch Booboo on the head. I think he’d like it if he gave me a chance.
Then I could see if his mom left a divot. But should I?
Should we keep wild creatures wild? Will there be a disturbance in the force? Do I care? HOW NEEDY AM I? Stay tuned.
It’s a conundrum, this engagement with the wild. I’ll admit to inviting dragonflies and damselflies onto my hand, excusing the intrusion because I am providing either heat, a windbreak or a convenient perch to hunt (apologies if ‘heat’ and ‘windbreak’ have different definitions in the States). After that, I am BUZZING for the rest of the day. Deep down, I think humans do need that reciprocal engagement with the wild, y’know, the experiences that aren’t mediated with a small fast-moving piece of metal. Maybe Booboo is just channelling your inner rebel, pushing the boundaries and doing some research, prior to inventing the corvid written word and a whole new career?
Let’s go with that! If dragonflies are anything like butterflies, they might be landing on you for the moisture. Are you moist?
Not as moist as Booboo’s sandwiches!
I don’t blame Booboo one bit for not helping out with his new siblings, after what mom did! But while he wasn’t getting peanuts from you because of her, he was watching and learning valuable lessons. He recognizes you, and knows that you are The Keeper of the Nuts! While mom and dad are busy with the new crows, he probably is smart enough to figure out that you are a safe person, and he MAY come progressively closer to you as the season progresses. He no doubt observed that the other crows stayed a bit further away, and that if HE comes closer to you than they do, he will get nuts. Crows are really intelligent, so if I figured all that out, I’m sure that he did, too. I think you have a good shot at this, Murr, and I have my fingers crossed that you have a personal crow friend soon. AND that you report on him and his doings to us. I really miss Canuck, and it would provide a vicarious thrill for me to read about your crow friend!
As of a couple days ago, the other crows showed up with a kid in tow, so we’re back to the usual complement. What Booboo is doing most now is hauling in entire sandwiches from somewhere else and putting them in our birdbaths. They’re a dang mess. I don’t quite get around to cleaning them once a day…
I get a thrill from watching birds bathe and drink from the water bowls I set out. More of a thrill than the seeds, probably because they take such obvious pleasure from it.
Recently I brought two toads home from a particularly toxic neighborhood (pesticide and fertilizer) that had probably arrived in landscaping materials as the area around it is a moonscape. They apparently have settled in because I can take them out for tank renovations, put them back in, drop crickets and mealworms in front of them and they just tuck in like they weren’t in a bucket a minute ago.
The only time I actually held a toad was several years ago. I opened my front door to get the mail, and there he was, standing on my top front doorstep, looking at me expectantly. I immediately picked him (might or might not have kissed his little head!) and took him out to the driveway to show Paul, who was working back there. Then I put him in our pond area, where there is water, food, and shelter for a toad. I hope he thrived. Since toads are nocturnal, I’m not apt to see them, as I am an early to bed, early to rise sort of person. Same way with skunks and raccoons. I know they’re here, but I don’t keep the same hours they do.
I guess toads are mostly nocturnal, but they’re not hard to spot in the daytime either. I have vivid memories of picking up toads when I was little and having them piddle on me. As my dad put it.
I have seen toads active at night and also active by day. I think it depends on how well nourished they are. If they’re hungry, they’re out and about. Mim, kissing a toad is a bad idea due to bufotoxin secretions. At best, you might get a mild tingle, worst you could be in a coma. Toads were very common here in central Jersey through the early 1980s and then the chytrid fungus knocked them back hard. Finding one is a matter of luck, rather than turning over the right number of boards. I was overjoyed to find them in my yard when I moved to the new house nine years ago. And then the neighbors started spraying pesticide in a big way and that was the end of the toads and the tree frogs.
Bruce, what are your chances with educating your neighbors? I think there are a number of people who simply need a little more information. I do understand hesitation in dealing with neighbors, especially these days. I do talk to my neighbors, most recently about letting cats out to roam my yard, and everything has been cordial, but I got nowhere. Still. I think it’s possible they *might* want to know the effects of their habits. Especially if you had other suggestions for whatever it is they think they’re accomplishing. If you want me to write an anonymous letter….lemme know.
I’d say my chances of educating the neighbors is slim to none. I do converse with my immediate next door neighbors and have been successful in getting them to stop adding dye to their hummingbird nectar and to stop feeding when we had a house finch eye disease outbreak (during which we both sterilized our tube feeders, yes I know the teachings of JZ on that), but that’s mostly been interfacing with the wife. The husband is behind the aggressive spraying and we mostly just nod and grunt. The rest of the neighbors are convinced I’m a monster of some sort because I’m unmarried, have no children and had the temerity to ask the neighborhood children to not sled on the pile of snow that was over my front garden.
As far as getting close to wildlife, my Boy Scout training tells me to admire them from afar. Period. But I know that this is old-fashioned and overly rigid, so I’m not judging anyone who gets friendly with anyone else.
That said, I did have a minor flashback whilst reading this post. One of your phrases triggered a hazy memory of living in Richmond VA in the 1970s, without air conditioning and with swilling down 75-cent quarts of Schlitz beer to cool off on those hot summer nights…..Of course, the triggering phrase was ** “We walked around the yard with our nuts out yelling HEY, WALNUT BOY! “**.
Memories like that make me wonder how and why I am still alive…..
Ed. Your nuts.
I’ve got Charlie and Clarissa Crow a-courting between two 80-foot tall horse chestnut trees at the intersection in my leafy, close-in Southeast Portland ‘hood. He’s not bringing her worms, though, apparently just the pleasure of his company. I find myself inventing conversations between them when they sit on he same telephone wire.
Oh my, if you’re paying attention you can see an awful lot of public displays of affection going on. Check this out. I think you’ll have to copy and paste into your browser. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwkd6sgYP7w
I’d settle for him taking peanuts from my (your) hand and forget about the head scritches.
But his head is so adorable. And itchy.
I am a professional sorta ornithologist and I am DEEPLY impressed that you’ve gained the confidence of crows. I did it once and they knew me and my car, but the most they’d do is let me watch them from the window as they gobbled down my meaty offerings. We have a feature coming up in BWD Magazine (bwdmagazine.com to subscribe) about a guy who has trained 27 species to feed from his hand. This guy stands there for four hours at a time averting his eyes with his hand out. Hairy woodpeckers on his hand! One he can’t convince? AMERICAN CROW. You are hugely gifted and blessed to gain their confidence. I salute you! Maybe you’ll write us an article and tell us how you did it? xoxo jz
Really? I thought crows were supposed to be easy. Huh! Now I don’t feel so bad. Anyway I am very far from having a crow land on me. I haven’t ruled out the head skritches.
And hairy woodpeckers on his hand! My my. Our friend Linda has had issues for years with hummingbirds probing her ear. Just one ear, too. I shudder to think what might happen to her if a woodpecker got interested.
But what about the bwd article? You are perfect for it, Murr!
Yeah- the crows. Crow poop on window screens. And I am an innocent party here…… not a fan, but not a foe.
How do they sling it onto a window screen? High winds?