Well, predictably for this blog, Dennis is a crow.
He’s a young crow who’s gone through many life changes since his wild early days as a rowdy mobber of local photographers.
I first wrote about him two years ago in The Young and the Restless.
He was hanging around with fellow feckless youth and had earned himself the nickname “Dennis The Menace” for his habit of diving at me from behind and ignoring all rules of accepted crowtiquette.
Dennis and his gang, 2022
Rambunctious, but already handsome
Dennis was one of Earl and Echo’s fledglings that year and he stayed with them well into the fall.
Dennis surprises his parents with a sudden jump
While some crow fledglings stick around for years, things between Dennis and his parents, particularly Earl, quickly grew fractious.
Dennis (left) and Earl (right) get into a bit of a contretemps, Oct 2022
All in all, Dennis was far too opinionated and generally full of beans to be a nest helper. By spring 2023 he’d sort of “moved out” — not too far though, just a bit down the block; the equivalent of a human teen relocating to the basement suite.
As for Dennis and I, we sorted out our differences and he learned to stop diving at my head fairly quickly. Once we’d established basic ground rules, he became one of my favourite crow models.
Dennis in a stiff breeze 2002
Dennis in snow, winter 2022-23
Dennis, Spring 2023
Dapper Dennis, it so happens, is November’s model in the 2025 City Crow Calendar.
With the “telling crows and ravens apart” theme of the 2025 calendar, Dennis’s portrait helps illustrate the differences between crow and raven beaks and hackles.
I’m especially fond of this photo; it highlights the detail in Dennis’s immaculate feathers and, if you look closely enough, you can see Geordie and me reflected in his eye.
But back to Dennis and his coming of age.
Earl and Echo had three more fledglings in 2023 … entirely without Dennis’s assistance.
Meanwhile, our young hero found himself a mate (Diane) and really settled into his territory down the block from mom and dad.
This spring I was thrilled to hear that Dennis, like Bongo, had developed his own weirdly specific breeding season call …
For most of the local crows, the 2024 breeding season was a bit of a bust with many failed nests and precious few fledglings to show for all that work. It looked as if Bongo and Bella were the only ones in our crowbourhood who’d managed to raise any little ones.
In mid-August Dennis and Diane finally produced two fledglings of their own. It must have been a long hot summer for them. The first nest, or even two, probably failed, so they’d have had to keep finding new locations and more and more twigs for construction. The summer was hot and dry, so keeping the precious babies hydrated and fed into late summer/fall would have been a special challenge.
But, success — all that special vocabulary finally paid off!
Dennis and Diane taking a quiet moment
Unfortunately, by September one of the two offspring had developed what looked like a bad case of avian pox, as crow fledglings often seem to do in the late summer season.
Against all odds, Dennis and Diane have kept little Tufty alive through moulting season, atmospheric rivers and this week’s bomb cyclone. It’s starting to look as if he/she might make it to adult crow-hood.
Tufty, with a little goatee chin feather and a few remaining, but shrinking growths on the face and feet.
Other crow parents blissfully shed their parental responsibilities in September but as of yesterday (November 21) I still see Dennis dutifully feeding Tufty.
Tufty’s healthy sibling is still around too, although that one seems to be required to pull their own weight, foraging and territory protection-wise.
Tufty and sibling
Once the neighbourhood “bad boy,” Dennis has turned his reputation right around.
In two short years he’s gone from rabble-rouser to devoted dad and model citizen.
I do wonder if Dennis is ready to deal, from the parent’s perspective, with the challenging teen phase.
Well, he can always waddle/hop down the block and ask for some advice from dear old dad.
A young “know-it-all” Dennis ignoring Dad’s advice about not eating the gold paint on the fancy railings.
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