It’s been quieter than usual around here for the last month. Yes, the littler songbirds were tweedling away in breeding season, and scolding and running off interlopers, but the crows barely made a peep. I assume they’ve been busy on the nest and not wanting to draw undue attention from eagles and hawks, but their nestlings have by now feathered up, thudded to the ground, and walked around in a daze for a few days, and at this point everyone’s airborne and wants to catch up. They’re yakking all the time and, frankly, talking over each other, although that’s not considered rude in that society. Crows make a lot of different noises but today one of them is just going CRAWK CRAWK CRAWK without letting up one bit.
A lot of humans don’t think much of that particular racket, although that’s pretty rich coming from a species that invented the leaf-blower. It doesn’t bother me at all, but I admit I can’t imagine why a bird that can make lots of different sounds would choose to CRAWK for hours on end. What is being communicated here? Maybe nothing much. Maybe it’s just one crow taking on the town crier gig. “12 o’clock and all’s well! 12:00:05 and all’s well! 12:00:10 and all’s well! 12:00:15 and all’s BLAM [thud].”
[Here I would like to insert that crows are protected under the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 but in Indiana, at least, you may kill a crow that is “about to commit a depradation upon an ornamental tree,” which explains the well-worn cinematic trope “Git the shotgun, Henry, thet crow is commencin’ to commit a depradation on the plumeria!”]
But when I say the crows hadn’t made a peep I wasn’t being figurative. They do peep. They warble and chuckle and even pull off a paradiddle-and-rimshot from time to time, and when I’m engaging with my personal crows, and asking them how they are, they answer very quietly. I can see their throats working in response but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I suspect, though, that if I were their exact same size and sitting right next to them, I could hear it just fine. I further suspect that most birds are communicating in a much more sophisticated manner than even experts give them credit for.
I remember hearing some scientist being interviewed on NPR who, when asked what a chickadee was saying when he said “chick-a-dee,” said “Probably he’s just saying ‘I’m a chickadee!’” Well. At the very least he’s saying “I am chickadee Ralphie S. Mossmaster and all this here is my crib so the rest of you should back off.” But I for one am not willing to swear they don’t occasionally shoot the breeze with each other. Have you seen Marge lately? I mean, we all gotta molt, but she’s really let herself go.
We just don’t know. For the most part we’re like the Americans who listen to someone for whom English is her sixth language and say: Shoo-ee, she’s stupid. She don’t even talk right.
I was walking by the river yesterday and heard a crow CRAWKing from a tree, and a young mother turned to her toddler and said “That’s a duck! Can you say Quack, quack, quack?” There didn’t seem to be much point in correcting the woman, but I’ll just put it out there that the basic duck quack is specifically coming from a mallard, and a female one at that, and in season what she’s probably communicating is Get out of here with your dang corkscrew dick and leave me alone, and crows are never, ever saying that. They don’t even have dicks. So that’s one way to tell the difference.
Most of us don’t know much about birds at all, and even those who do have learned to be humble about it. It’s best to assume they’re talking about us. It isn’t always about us. But sometimes it is. So behave, and try not to commit a depradation.
If it’s CRAWK for hours on end, my guess would be that it’s a youngster begging mom for a hand-out. I don’t know exactly what the crows are saying, but I can recognize by their tone of voice what it may be. When it’s a raucous CAW, I go outside and look for a hawk. Generally that’s the sound they make when they are upset. Then there is the soft QUARK, which I take to mean chatting or conveying information: “We’re all meeting in the field next to Marini’s for a potlatch! Bring the kids; we got some matchmaking to do!” I think this because sometimes crows will come to our treetops from various directions, quark at each other for a while, then all take off in the same direction.
Depends on the season. I used to think the hours-on-end thing was baby crows but that’s exactly what females do during courtship season. They want someone to bring them a burger to show they care. (The baby crows CRAWK and then there’s that gagging sound as they get fed; then pause; then back to CRAWKing.)
It’s me again, looking for my avatar.
And no, I don’t want to see a duck penis right now. Maybe later.
P.S. I was using my Merlin Sound ID the other day, and it identified the CRAWKing of what it said was a Fish Crow. This is an actual type of crow!
from Susan in Maryland, who misses her avatar.
I don’t know how people are being educated about natural history these days. Ducks have been virtually extinct at the local lake due to Canada geese outcompeting them for available forage. But I always hear people telling their children that the geese are ducks.
I watched two children trying to feed geese one day. The geese came right up to them. The children responded by stretching their arms up as high as they could and throwing the food at the geese. The geese were nearly as tall as the children with their upstretched arms and obviously considered that the children were attacking them. They also were calling the geese ducks.
At my childhood house on foggy mornings, crows would perch in the highest trees and call back and forth. Maybe their version of the neighborhood watch?
Susan, we miss your avatar too. I looked around and it isn’t here anywhere. Bruce: I think those children will get nipped out of the gene pool right soon.
I don’t see any sign of lack of interest in nature being lost from the gene pool. There is an appalling lack of curiosity in most people I meet.
The boys I met who were trying to feed geese were at least making an attempt to engage nature. They weren’t making the connection that standing tall with their arms up and hands angled down made them look like geese. They were very young and that kind of deduction is rare at that age.
Look for “The Extraordinary Birder” on NatGeo — the episode in DC has a great line about the difference between common crows and fish crows!
I have a small murder of crows living in the tall pine at the side of the yard. This is their second year nesting up there. They clearly nest in a larger group than a pair, more like a half dozen communal, which I dont quite understand.
There are at least several youngsters cruising about all afternoon, every afternoon. They make a very fine racket. I’m leaving a new small token or two every day on the boulder under the tree they perch on and they have been coming down to investigate and sorting through them. So far one made off with a small shell.. I’ll post some photos soon.
Child-rearin’ among crows can be and usually is a family affair. There’s mom and dad, and an average of two kids, and the adolescents from the previous year (at least) sometimes help out and sometimes they don’t. Some of them stay in the basement all year ’round and holler up for Cheetos.
I’m not certain about male Magpie chicks, but the female chicks hang around Mom and Dad and help raise the new brood(s). One Magpie chick rearing behaviour I’ve not seen widely discussed is that the adults leave their fledged chicks in a juvenile flock in the afternoons, in the care of the yearling sisters, while they go off to forage! When the parents return in the early evening, the chicks leave the flock and the family groups reform. If a parent (s) doesn’t return, the chick(s) are immediately incorporated into other family groups. We took the Magpie chick we’d raised to the river where the flock (hundreds of ‘pies) ended their daily separation. We left him deep in conversation with a young female and snuck away. We came back the next day, terrified he might be hurt or worse. The Magpies swept down the river as always and landed all around us. He left the flock, and landed on my outstretched hand. He looked at me, and at the young female on the nearby branch. I raised my hand and lifted him into the air. We’d raised him for freedom. They flew away together. They nested just at the corner of the house and he’d bring their chicks to our second floor balcony and perch them on the railing and scream until we came to have a look. Something about bird love. Gets you in the feels.
What a charming episode! Went straight to my tear ducts.
Mine too!
I heard a crow doing the nonstop crawk thing here a few days ago, I thought it was probably a junior who’d been left by his mum to “stay here and stay safe I’ll be back later” and she was running late so he got a bit anxious.
Anxious, or else he’s proclaiming “I’m a grownup! I’m a grownup! I’m a grownup!”
Great post and great comments! It’s an honor to know you all. Or y’all. Or all y’all.
It’s “all y’all.”
We’re currently watching a nest worth of inept baby cardinals. Turns out that landing on things is SUPER difficult. Lots of touch and go landings and general oopsies going on. It’s very amusing for the humans, and, I suspect, hard work for the baby cardinals.
We want videos!