Whither The Walkers?

April 10, 2025 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

I’m often asked how the Walkers are doing, so it’s time for an update.

Mr. Walker — as shown in City Crow Stories

The Walkers are featured in my City Crow Stories book — which is about to be reissued with some new chapters.

Over the years, Mr. Walker was always the focus of my blog posts; he was by far the bolder of the pair, named for his habit of walking fearlessly beside me and the dog.

Wanda, blind in one eye for the whole time I’ve known her, was always waiting in the background, timid and a bit clumsy in her flying technique. If there was a sudden crashing about in the branches, it was usually Wanda, failing to nail the landing again.

This family dynamic underwent a dramatic change in the spring of 2023 when Mr. Walker suffered a serious eye injury.

For a while, it looked as if he would not survive, sitting motionless on high tree branches for hours at a time. It was nesting season, however, so Wanda somehow chivvied him along enough for them to complete the nest and fledge three babies. Tragically, all three were infected with avian pox. As soon as they fledged, Mr. Walker vanished and Wanda spent a desperate week or two trying to defend and care for them on her own before she and the fledglings also disappeared.

The last of the Walker fledglings to leave the nest, spring 2023

I assumed that Mr. Walker had succumbed to his eye injury and the fledglings to their illness. Wanda’s whereabouts remained a mystery. Had she worked herself into an early grave or just gone off for a long rest somewhere?

Spring 2024 brought a Walker surprise — the reappearance of both Mr Walker and Wanda back on “their” block. It was wonderful to see them again after their mysterious winter absence but, sadly, Mr. W was still far from his old self.

Wanda, who had always been the timid one of the pair, took up all the slack, boldness-wise, morphing from wallflower to warrior queen.

This is not the first time I’ve seen a change in crow family circumstances result in a personality transformation. When I first met George and Mabel, George was the swashbuckler of the family; but when he lost the top part of his beak Mabel stepped up, accessed her inner Boudica, and became the fierce protector of family and territory.

From wallflower to warrior queen

I’d hoped to see them build another nest, but Mr. W seemed too ill to put in all that work. As the hot, dry summer went on, it seemed enough for the two of them to take care of each other.

The video below shows the last time I saw them together — Wanda preening her beloved Mr. W as he appears to drift off into a blissful late summer nap.

After that day they both vanished again.

As another whole Walker-less winter went by, I assumed that we had reached the end of their family saga.

There is, however, at least one more chapter — to be revealed in tomorrow’s post.

Puffins

May 31, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 5 Comments

I have so many things to write about — the amazing things we saw on our recent UK trip, as well as everything going on in the action-packed few blocks around here in the midst of crow nesting season.

Partly as a distraction from the stress of minute-by-minute nesting news, I’ve decided to write today about puffins.

Yes, puffins.

Just saying the name makes me smile.

I’ve always wanted to see them and, having almost reached my 70th birthday without a single puffin sighting, I added that to my dream list for the trip — along with seeing all of the UK versions of corvids, of course!

We saw two puffins in North Wales, but the the real puffin-palooza was on the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland.

We ended our UK trip in the North East because that’s where I grew up and where I still have dear friends and family.

Mostly we stayed in Newcastle, but we also had three nights in Berwick-upon-Tweed (a lovely town right on the England-Scotland border) in order to explore some of the wilder parts of Northumbria. I’ve always wanted to go to the Farne Islands, a world famous habitat and breeding area for sea birds and grey seals.

I should add that it’s also famous for saints, hermits and Grace Darling, the heroic lighthouse keeper’s daughter — but I’ll just stick to the birds for this post!

Luck was with us for our trip in many ways. The National Trust had closed the islands to visitors for two years after an outbreak of avian flu — but just re-opened them this March. Also (and this is vital for someone as prone to seasickness as me) the crossing was smooth, there and back!

Before we saw puffins we spotted guillemots, grey seals, shags (smaller cousins to the cormorant,) razor bills, eider ducks, black headed gulls, sandwich terns and kittiwakes …

Guillemots allopreening

Lots of guillemots!

Shags drying off their wings after a dive

Nesting kittiwakes

Razorbills

Grey seal greeter

And … at last … puffins!

Puffins afloat around the islands!

When puffins arrive back at the islands in spring for the mating season, they form rafts of floating birds before they make landfall. It’s on the water that they pair up with their mate before moving to land to lay the eggs. Puffins are mostly monogamous, so they will usually mate and nest with the same partner, year after year.

The eggs are laid in burrows about a metre long. Puffins lay only a single large egg each spring and both parents pour all of their resources into raising that one precious chick — or puffling!

I managed to capture a couple of puffin mating behaviours — one of them is the male flicking his head back repeatedly and making grunting sounds.

This is, apparently, very popular with the ladies! Unfortunately, the sounds of all the other seabirds drowned out the grunting part.

The other behaviour, similar to ravens and their beak play courtship, is the clacking of beaks together.

The first words that come to mind when seeing these birds are “cute” and “adorable” — and so they are — but there is SO much more to them.

While their waddling gait on land makes them look like inebriated penguins …

… these birds are amazingly tough and built for life on the sea. During nesting season each puffin parent will spend seven hours a day under water as well as whatever flying time is needed to bring food to that one precious puffling in the burrow. They commonly dive to 15 metres but can get down to 60 metres if necessary.

And those puffin faces! The beaks that look as if they have been carefully painted on fresh each morning in front of the mirror! The little rosettes at the side of the beak! The dashing red legs!

All of these things make them look so sweet to our human eyes — but there is a puffin-precise purpose to each part of the amazing display.

Puffins do not look like this all year round! After nesting season they shed the colourful outer layer of their beaks and in winter are dark, rather dull birds out at sea — but as soon as their little bodies receive the “more light so spring is near” memo they start the transformation.

Developing the coloured beaks and bright legs is a costly metabolic proposition, requiring lots of top quality nutrition to get that bright and impressive “look-at-me-what a-fine-specimen-of-top-breeding-puffin-I-am” look. A young puffin won’t be ready for breeding until they’re at least five.

In the crowded puffin colonies it’s vital to look splendid, both to attract a mate and to command the respect of your fellow puffins.

The colony may seem a model of good puffin behaviour, with returning puffins bowing upon landing to show proper humility and then strutting around to show just the right amount of puffin confidence. All of this is a carefully developed social network, brilliantly described in The Seabird’s Cry by Adam Nicolson.

Of the appearance of summer puffins, Nicolson writes:

“Breeding puffins, like hidalgos at court, need to look like heroes, an exhibition of their own marvellousness.”

Their decorous behaviour mostly avoids inter-puffin fighting . Gulls, with their 3 or 4 eggs, can afford the risk of a brawl or two, but the puffins, with that single precious one, seek to avoid conflict as much as possible.

“Occasionally, there is a fight and a tussle between the birds in which they go rolling down the hillside, bill clamped to bill, but on the whole they avoid confrontation, standing alone, held in a silent net of body-signals.”

Adam Nicolson, The Seabird’s Cry

So, as adorable as these birds may look to us, to themselves they are immaculate courtiers in a dangerous society; violence held at bay only by everyone following the strict rules and manners of nesting co-existence.

Having seen puffins once, I’m now somewhat consumed by the desire to see them again.

Perhaps, another year, we could visit a month or so later and hope to see … pufflings!

Note: The Seabird’s Cry is an amazing book — written as if the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins were also a bird scientist. Thanks to my friend, Pauline, for introducing me to it! I’ve learned a lot about puffins, seabirds, all birds and how we think about birds from it already, and I’m not even finished. The Guillemot chapter made me cry. Highly recommended!

Perhaps my favourite paragraph on puffins in The Seabird’s Cry:

“Watch them in a strengthening wind, so that they are flying into it almost at the same speed the wind is blowing them back, and they hang in front of you, 10 feet away, busy, looking resolutely forward and then sideways to see what you are, their features not sleek as they are at rest but ruffled, troubled, with the look of boats working in a tideway, more real and mysteriously more serious than the neat, brushed creatures you meet standing at the colony. That is a glimpse of the ocean bird, not on display but somehow private to itself, the bird that dies in winter, that in a bad year goes 300 miles or more in search of food for chicks it knows are hungry in the burrow, a bird at work, an animal who’s life stands outside the cuteness in which we want to envelop it.”

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Tell Crows and Ravens Apart — Corvid Clarity

October 28, 2023March 13, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 22 Comments

How can you tell if it’s a crow or a raven?

This question often comes up in my email and social media so I thought I’d re-post this blog from a few years ago.

I was partly inspired by having coincidentally photographed both a crow and a raven in very similar poses and both against a red background just recently.

I thought it was fun to see the two images together.

Crow against a red garage wall in an East Vancouver alleyway

Raven against a red roof at a ski hill in North Vancouver

The two pictures highlight a couple of the most obvious differences between crows and ravens. You can see that the raven’s beak is a lot heftier than that of the crow. The raven also has that rather opulent display of throat feathers

There are a lot of excellent resources to help out with learning to tell ravens from crows (more on these later) — but in this post I’m working mostly from my own observations, made from over a decade of daily corvid-watching.

TAIL SHAPE

First of all, if you just catch a glimpse of a crow/raven mystery bird flying over you — check out the tail shape.

The raven’s tail feathers form a diamond shape, while the crow’s tail is in more of a flat-edged fan arrangement.

Crow and Raven Flying Silhouettes

Raven in Flight

While you’re watching them in flight, note if they’re doing more soaring or flapping.

Raven are more prone to using the air currents for long, effortless glides, while crows tend to rely more on flapping.

That being said — I have seen crows having a lot of fun on windy days, just riding the gusts of wind like a roller coaster.

THROAT FEATHERS

As I mentioned earlier, the raven is distinguished by a rather magnificent arrangement of throat feathers — something like an very luxurious cravat.

Crows, while also (of course) magnificent in their own way, are less generously endowed in the cravat department. Sometimes, when they fluff up as part of grooming, or to look fierce, their throat feathers can look a bit “raven-y” — but generally they’re smoother.

Fluffed-up crow in “fierce” mode.

Normal chest feathers on a relaxed crow (Bongo)

RELATIVE SIZE

Having been unable to persuade either species to remain still while I measure them, I’ve had to rely on information gleaned from the internet here.

Ravens, I’ve read, measure up to 67 cm (26 inches) long with a wingspan of up to 130 (51 inches). Their smaller relatives, the crow are about 46 cm (18 inches) long and have a wingspan of around 95 cm (36 inches).

Unless you happen to see them sitting side by side at an equal distance from you, it’s difficult to make an identification based on size alone.

In this case the two birds were more or less the same distance away, although the crow was a bit higher up in the tree, probably making him look a little smaller.

Raven and two crows — here the crows are considerably further away, making the scale deceptive.

BEHAVIOUR

If you see a large black corvid being mobbed by one or more smaller ones, you can pretty much guarantee that the big one is a raven and s/he is being harassed by the crow Neighbourhood Watch committee.

Crows Mob Raven

In spite of their family connections, ravens will blithely raid crow nests for a tasty egg snack — putting them firmly on the crows’ “naughty list” along with eagles, hawks, racoons, squirrels, coyotes, cats and etc.

Crow Raven Pursuit

SOCIETY

Both crows and ravens normally mate for life.

photograph of a raven pair standing head to head

A raven couple

Crow couple, Echo and Earl

In the city, crow pairs tend to claim half a block or so as their territory. They spend most of their daylight hours there and will usually chase off other crows who cross the invisible crow boundaries.

At night, however, the Vancouver crows turn to safety in numbers as protection against dangers that lurk in the dark. Just before dusk the crows gather in larger and larger groups as they all fly, sometimes looking like a river of crows, to the roost at Still Creek. It’s “the more the merrier” as they congregate around the roosting area, with lots of loud calling before they all settle in for the night in tree branches or on Hydro wires or buildings.

Ravens don’t form roosts in our area, but they do seem to gather in larger groups when there’s a good food source to be shared. Not always, but occasionally, the area around the local ski hill parking lots have lots of ravens hanging around together.

It’s not the size of the crow roost by any means, but it does seem to be a social occasion.

It’s on days like these I’ve witnessed the ravens playing with snowballs and engaging in other playful activities. It always seems to be that they gather when there are a lot of humans up at the ski hill, dropping food and leaving sandwiches unattended. A sunny Spring Break ski day seems to draw a lot of ravens to the parking lot as it did the day of the Raven Soap Opera in Two Acts.

I have read that in other parts of North America and Europe, ravens do form roost-like communities — although these of a more temporary nature than the crow roosts. The Still Creek Crow roost in Burnaby, for example, has been a crow meeting place since the 1970’s!

SOUNDS

By far the easiest way to tell a crow from a raven is by the sound they make.

Crows caw and ravens have more of a croaking sound. But that’s a great simplification of their complicated call sets.

Here are just few examples to help you tell them apart:

CROW ALARM CALL

This is probably the most common corvid you’ll hear in a city. This example is Marvin and Mavis expressing their displeasure at our cat being out on the deck.

CROW “RATTLE” CALL

This is another crow call, less often heard because it’s a softer, more intimate form of crow-munication.

RAVEN CALL

This seems to be the most common raven call I hear, both in the city and in the mountains.

RAVEN KNOCKING CALL

This beautiful sound is more like the crow’s rattle call – more subtle and melodic – almost like water dripping or a hollow bamboo tube being tapped.

RAVEN RECITATION

In this clip a raven seems to be performing a jazz concert of different subtle sounds — an example of how complex corvid language is.

ATTITUDE

When it comes to confidence and attitude, ravens and crows have so much in common.

Both are highly intelligent birds — you can almost hear the cogs of their brains whirring as they work out myriad “risk/benefit” calculations when they come close to humans.

It’s really not surprising that both crows and ravens are often characterized as tricksters in stories and legends.

Crow Raven Dancers

OTHER RESOURCES

Kaeli Swift – Corvid Research

One of the best places to find out all about corvids is on Kaeli Swift’s awesome blog Corvid Research. Kaeli covers every corvid related topic you can think of in her posts. You can also follow her on social media and participate in her skill-building weekly Crow or No? contests.

John Marzluff

His books In The Company of Crows and Ravens and Gifts of the Crows, are just full of interesting information on both of these amazing birds.