Nesting News

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 1 Comment

Nesting season is fully underway once again, and, as usual, things are going more smoothly for some crows than for others.

My next post will give a rundown on how individual crows are doing, but today I’m thinking about the general crow strategies for a successful nesting season.

This pivotal period requires some serious tactical thinking — decisions made at the outset of nest-building have big downstream consequences.

For example, when to build the nest?

With hotter, drier summers becoming the new normal, the impetus is to get started as soon as possible. Fledgling-rearing in drought conditions is really difficult and lowers the survival rate considerably.

An early start is, therefore, the obvious way to go — but there are downsides!

Any early-built nest is often in a deciduous tree that isn’t fully leafed out, allowing potential predators to observe and memorize the location.

This year, we’ve already had a lot of hot, dry weather in Vancouver, so I’ve been putting bowls of water out to help the crows keep themselves and their fledglings hydrated. It has just rained,  so we’re back to normal spring weather with puddles-a-plenty — for now.

Many of the early nests will fail for one reason or another, forcing some crows to hustle to get a second nest built. This will mean they’ll be forced to raise the fledglings in the hotter, drier weather, but they’ll usually take that chance.

Where to build the nest?

Even once a site is picked, there’s the question of whether to build higher or lower. Height offers relative safety from ground-based dangers like cats, raccoons and coyotes, but puts the nest in the hunting zone for eagles, hawks, owls and ravens.

So many risk/benefit scenarios and lessons learned in previous years are being processed by our local crow parents.

Each couple will take many factors, far beyond mere nest altitude,  into consideration before deciding where to build. Good nest sites are highly sought after, and territorial lines between crow families may be fought over and altered at this time of year.

Real estate in the city is a competitive commodity, for people AND crows.

Crow families generally have a half block or so of territory, which they will defend against other crows and, in winter,  they will spend most of their daylight hours there before heading to the roost at night. Once a nest is built and has eggs in it, the crow parents will forgo the nightly roost trip to guard the nest and, later, the fledglings,  24/7.

Crow couples prefer to nest in the same territory, year after year — but things in the city are always in flux, for people and for wildlife — and sometimes a change of scene is essential if something in the neighbourhood changes to make it less safe or desirable.

The most spectacular example of this was Marvin and Mavis’s forced last-minute move in 2021 when the nearby stand of trees they’d nested in for years was felled for a new development.

Last Spring, Bongo and Bella had to abandon their first nest due to the addition of a particularly ferocious outdoor cat to the local community. They moved their nest location out of their usual territory, forcing them to fight for space with crow neighbours to the south. Meanwhile, the territory they left vacant was snapped up by a more junior couple. Sometimes you have to put up with a less-than-ideal starter home when you’re just starting out, even if it comes with a terrifying tree-climbing cat.

Even after nesting season, the territorial lines have remained permanently redrawn.

Another example: this season, I  noticed a Cooper’s Hawk nesting in some big trees that are usually prime crow breeding spots. Some of the more senior crow families have always nested there. Now, suddenly, that particular area is much less sought after, and the only crow pair I see nesting nearby are a very young couple.

Nervous young dad

Crow trying to chase a hawk away from the nest

Their prospects are not great; aside from the predatory neighbours, this young pair are clearly inexperienced. The male, who looks very young and nervous, has not gotten the hang of bringing food to his mate as she sits on the nest, resulting in lots of loud (hawk-attracting) begging on her part, and frequent trips out of the nest to get her own snacks, when she should be sitting quietly and incubating the eggs. The odds seem pretty stacked against this young couple, but you never know …

The young crow pair that took over Bongo and Bella’s cat-scourged territory last year did succeed in raising fledglings. They were Sneezy and Sue, and one of the fledglings, Syd, is still with them — helping to defend their new territory.

Which brings me to perhaps the biggest factor in nest success or failure — sheer luck!

My next post will give a rundown on how my local crows are doing as individual families. We’ll see how Marvin & Mavis, Norman and Nancy, Bill and Irene and the rest are doing, and whether the nest gods are smiling or frowning on their efforts so far.

 

 

© junehunterimages, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

 

Young Syd and Family

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 1 Comment

Young Syd represents the newest generation in the Earl and Echo dynasty. She’s one of several crows born in this area last spring who’ve stayed over winter, hanging out with their extended family and learning from their elders.

Earl and Echo are venerable crows, progenitors to many local crow characters. Their offspring include Dennis (born in 2022) and his mate, Dolly, who live just to the west of them, and Sneezy (born in 2023) and his mate, Sue, who moved into a vacancy just east of Earl and Echo last spring.

Sneezy and Sue successfully raised a couple of fledglings, one of them being Syd.

Earl and Echo

Sneezy, Sue and Syd — Summer 2025

Last summer, there were a lot of fledglings in the neighbourhood, especially between Earl and Echo and their kids. It was a bit hard to tell exactly which babies belonged to which parents, as Dennis and Sneezy’s fledglings would wander into Earl and Echo’s block, where they seemed quite welcome.

Crows are usually pretty fierce about guarding their territory against all other crows, but it seems that special dispensation is given for close relatives — or perhaps Earl and Echo are just particularly doting grandparents.

Young Syd (back) hanging out with Earl and Echo during late summer moulting season

By winter, most of the new generation of Earl and Echo descendants had moved on — except for Syd.

You may remember the young crow I videoed catching snowdrops earlier this year. That was our Syd.

Like most youngsters, Syd is an energetic and curious young bird. She’s not nearly as driven as Lou with his relentless compulsion to pick up and examine just about every object that crosses his path, but she has her own foibles.

One of these is the fondness for looking behind her from a low angle. You’ll notice she’s in the same pose in the early photo of her with her parents.

Young crow in close up, head bent low and facing. backwards looking at the world from under their tail.

Upside Down (available as a print)

Syd doesn’t have any noticeably distinguishing features, except for a beak that seems to me to be slightly slimmer and narrower than average with an especially pronounced “V” in her nasal bristles.

(Note: I don’t know if Syd is male or female yet, but I’m opting to call her “her” for now.)

You can see a definite family resemblance, in attitude at least, between Syd and her grandpa.

Tenacious Earl (available as a print)

Young Syd (available as a print)

You can see that Syd’s extended family is raising her to be just as wise and tenacious as her forebears.

 

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© junehunterimages, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

What’s In A Name?

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 4 Comments

I know many of my neighbours by name.

Having lived in the same house for over thirty years, I’ve walked these streets for countless hours; sometimes pushing strollers, sometimes walking a succession of dogs, sometimes both at once. Over those years, I’ve come to know many of my human neighbours. Many of us have raised children, tended gardens and begun to grow old in tandem.

The name of each person is like a basket — a small yet miraculously capacious receptacle holding a vast treasure of shared history and stories.

For the past fifteen years, I’ve expanded my “getting to know the neighbours” concept to the local crows, giving many of them their own names too.

I’m sure they don’t particularly value their names.

Still, crow nomenclature has lots of advantages for me: it helps me keep their stories straight in my mind, and it seems only polite to acknowledge the fact that I know them, just as they know me.

When I say “good morning, Marvin,”  the name-basket contains so much.

Things like …

The day when Marvin first showed up on my back deck in 2017,  adorned with a splattering of white paint on his chest and head — no doubt the aftermath of some daring urban crow adventure. However he came by it, the paint allowed me to identify him easily until the next moult.

He arrived with his mate, Mavis.

Marvin and Mavis built a nest in the tree across the alleyway from us that first year, but lost it to raccoons, despite their tireless vocal efforts to ward off the masked bandits.

 

They assessed the risks and took to nesting in the tall poplar trees at the end of our street for the next two years.

Tragedy struck in 2018, when the fledglings fell too early from the high nest site. From our kitchen window, I watched the drama from afar, helplessly witnessing Mavis and Marvin’s sadness and confusion.

Marvin kept vigil over the empty nest for several days

In the wake of their loss, Mavis seemed to have forgotten how to look after herself, so Marvin took care of her.

Such joy when the second year in the poplars was successful, and they brought their fledglings to the tree in front of our house to keep them safe.

I still sigh to recall the huge effort that Marvin and Mavis put into driving other crows out of “their” row of poplars.

By 2020, they had succeeded — just in time for the trees to be felled by the human owners of the land.

The day after the tree carnage, I saw Marvin perching on one remaining poplar branch left hanging sadly on the Hydro wires.

Ever resilient, Marvin and Mavis assessed their new reality and moved their territory further east to where some big trees remained, raising two more fledglings in 2021.

In the disastrous crow nesting season of 2022, only Marvin and Mavis, of all the crow families in our neighbourhood, had a fledgling survive to end of summer.

I named that one Lucky.

Lovely Lucky

For three years Lucky stayed with Mom and Dad

He learned the ways of adult crows from Marvin and Mavis — especially how to yell at the rival neighbours, Norman and Nancy (also crows!)

Above: Marvin encouraging Lucky to redouble his vocal assault on Norman and Nancy.

In spite of all the yelling, Norman and Nancy have a firm grip on the old territory now so, in order to keep track of Marvin and co, I  have to take a walk across the invisible crow territorial boundary.

In spring 2025, Lucky moved on. I’m not sure where Marvin and Mavis nested that year, but they appeared in June with two fledglings.

One of the two, Lou, has stayed with the parents and continues Lucky’s tradition of helping to guard the home turf.

Lou and Marvin on bin day

I love that, having known and watched Marvin for so long, I can tell him just by a distant silhouette. His aquiline beak,  fluffy pants and air of confidence is quite distinctive.

So, when I say “Hi, Marv,” I’m acknowledging a lot of personality, a long , rich history and complex relationships with other crows.

It’s a bit dizzying when you start to think about it.

If Marvin has such a rich character and life story, then every other crow you catch out of the corner of your eye must be equally complex and worthy of attention.

I remember sitting at my grandmother’s dressing table mirror as a child and feeling a similar combination of awe and vertigo, falling into the visual rabbit hole of the three mirrors, angled at such a way as to reflect each other’s reflections into infinity.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the immeasurable richness of crow personalities lately, and this post is a rather round-about way of saying that I’m hoping to funnel some of that awestruck wonder into the 2027 calendar.

It’s theme will be the individual stories and personalities of some of the crows I know.

Marvin, of course, will be on the cover.

 

© junehunterimages, 2026. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.