city crow stories

Atmospheric Crows

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 4 Comments

The torrential rain we experienced on our little Sea to Sky vacation continued to pour down once we arrived home. Meteorologists now refer to these super-wet weather patterns as atmospheric rivers.

It felt, last week, as if I was spending about a third of my waking hours …

(a) getting the dog and me suitably dressed for rainswept walks (snorkels optional)

(b) peeling off layers of sodden rain gear, towel-drying the dog and my camera, and

(c) finding enough places to hang all the soaking items to dry, at least partially,  for the next expedition.

On the plus side, it was a great opportunity to capture some Atmospheric Crows.
There is just something about a wet crow …

Their reaction to the weather can give us small clues into their individual crow personalities. The well-soaked and rather indignant-looking bird above is Betty,  one of Bill’s fledglings from last year. She’s just getting used to the business of existing in range of a fire hose for several days in a row.

Bill in the rain

Below, looking relatively suave and sanguine in the same rain, is Dennis. A veteran of several winters, he seems to have developed a more philosophical attitude.

It seems to me that some crows are more prone to dishevelment than others. Dennis’s feathers are rarely disturbed by wind or rain. I’m not sure if this is due to sheer force of will or just lucky genetics.

There is often an even higher degree of judgment than normal in the looks that the crows give me on very wet days — as if they are considering whether I’m somehow to blame for the soggy state of the world.

I would like to speak to the management …

Somewhat alarmingly, the mild winter and early spring have the blossom trees a full month ahead of schedule. The plum trees, normally just starting to bloom now, are almost finished, and the cherry blossoms are fully out already.

Below is a crow out in two kinds of rain — some of it wet and falling from the sky, the rest, pink, and being washed out of the plum trees.

Young Lou, ever-resourceful, found a nice spot under a roof overhang to wait out the worst of the rain. An inspiration, as usual!

Below: just a few of the Atmospheric crow-inspired prints available in my shop.

Three prints in a row showing wet crows photographed by June Hunter. Right to left, Intensely wet crow in close up, side view of face, middle: Self Refection — crow and their reflection in a puddle, Right Crow Critic — indignant looking wet crow close up, facing cameral with sticking up feathers

 

 

© 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.

Small Crow Stories — Little Lou

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 30 Comments

It’s been a while since my last Crow News update.

Are you OK, Mom?

Every morning I get up, make coffee and sit with the cat while I check the latest world news on my phone.

Next, I get dressed and take the dog out for a walk. The walks have been getting longer this year, as it seems to take more time outside with the local crows to recalibrate my doomscrabbled brain.

I’ve been planning for a while to write regular blog posts, keeping up with the always-evolving crow stories — but my thoughts are endlessly engaged in the following tug-o-war:

“These tiny, detailed stories from nature are super-important, now more than ever!”

vs

“The stories of a dozen or so East Vancouver crows don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

This morning, the “tiny stories are super-important” side temporarily has the upper hand, so here is the story (so far) of Lucky Two — Lou for short.

Lou is one of my newest crow acquaintances — and the offspring of my two oldest crow acquaintances, Marvin and Mavis.

He was born last spring and seems set to stick around with his or her parents for a while, taking the place of Lucky One — Mavis and Marvin’s 2022 fledgling who stayed with them for three years. He moved on last spring, presumably to start a family of his own.

Note: I don’t know if Lou is male or female, but I’m referring to him as “he” for now.

Marvin with Lou and a sibling in early summer 2025

This little bird has stolen my heart.

So much so that when he vanished for about a month in January, I was ridiculously depressed at his absence, going out to search for him often.

I had pretty much resigned myself to him having gone for good when, on January 28, he was back, just as if nothing had happened. Obviously, something HAD happened, as evidenced by his newly ragged tail feathers, but we’ll just have to imagine his adventures.

He seems happy to be back to a quieter life with Mom and Dad. They seem pleased to have him back, too, with one or both of them keeping an eye on him at all times.

Lou, with slightly battered tail feathers

Lou has inspired my idea for the 2027 City Crow calendar.
The more time I spend around crows, the more convinced I am that they each have quite distinctive personalities — a concept that I’m excited to explore more in the calendar and on the blog. Lou is a perfect example.

Often, Lou is with other birds, including other “teenagers” — yet his behaviour and general way of being in the world set him apart. I am testing myself at picking him and other crows of my acquaintance out of a crowd solely by their behaviour.

In Lou’s case, I have a way to check if I’ve been right, once I get closer. He can be reliably identified by a tiny patch of white feathers on the side of his head — just visible from the right angle.

I often envy scientists who can accurately track birds by tagging them; these few tiny white feathers are my “tag” equivalent for checking out my crow personality theories.
It’s probably a limited-time opportunity, as he’ll likely lose this little mark after moulting season in the late summer/fall.

So, what do I know (and love) about Lou?

Well, first of all, he’s a photographer’s nightmare — constantly on the move in search of interesting things.

Nickels in the autumn leaves …

Pebbles in the grass …

Berries …

Moss (he could hire himself out as a gutter cleaner)

Mice …

Lou seems relentlessly optimistic, finding fun and entertainment around every corner.

Sometimes, he even thinks his parents might still feed him! When they fly close to him, his fledgling “feed-me” response is triggered. Marvin and Mavis either ignore this small regression or give him a light “in your dreams” peck.

His cheery, confident disposition sometimes leads him to think that the highly territorial neighbours (Norman and Nancy) will be fine with him coming over to say hi.

Norman and Nancy — they do NOT like visitors.

This is NEVER the case, and often Marvin and Mavis have to mount a rescue mission.

Marvin, acting as Lou’s bodyguard when close to Norman and Nancy’s imaginary territorial line

I can spot Lou among other crows because he’s the one in perpetual motion. He’s striding purposefully, searching for treasure, experimenting with new materials, and generally enjoying every single thing the world has to offer an adventurous young crow.

All juvenile crows are like this to a certain extent, but Lou, of all the “teenager” crows in the neighbourhood, is by far the most driven in his pursuit of getting to know everything about everything.

Lou in his favourite alley on bin collection day.

As you can see, I already have a lot of photos of Lou — yet for every picture of him in the frame and in focus, I have two of him that consist of a blurred fraction of tail or wing as he moves on to pastures new.

Endlessly entertaining; photographically nerve-wracking!

I look for Lou every time I leave the house, just so I can absorb a tiny portion of his optimism, curiosity and general joie de vivre.

A crow fledgling practices flying with wings outstretched as they take off from a tree

Lou takes flight, July 2025

 

© 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.

 

Hoorah for Earl and Echo

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 4 Comments

First of all, I apologize for the vast gap in blog posts. I see my last one was in April.
In my defence, it’s been a busy year of weddings, overseas visitors, publishing a revised book and the 2026 City Crow Calendar, and trying to keep up with the unexpected success of my needle-felted Party Crows.
In between those distractions and my thrice daily walks to walk the dog and check in on the local crows, there has been little time for actually writing things down.

This does not mean, of course, that the crow world has been devoid of exciting developments; on the contrary, it’s been an action-packed spring, with more new fledglings than we’ve seen in this neighbourhood for years.

So … lots to catch up on.

Let’s start with Earl and Echo.

I was beginning to worry about them: Earl with his increasingly bent leg and halting gait; Echo with her partial blindness; and the fact that both of them are getting on in crow years.

Earl enjoyed a small blast of social media fame a week or so ago due to the image below.

The image is the picture I took of Earl, puddle-plodgling, displayed on the LCD camera viewfinder, spangled with actual raindrops and captured by my iPhone camera. Unexpectedly, the raindrops magnified the screen’s grid pattern, and the rainbow raindrops were rendered in a grid pattern, somehow combining real-life and technology in one groovy image — which is now available as a print.

After the rainy days, I went to look for Earl and Echo, but failed to find them in their usual haunts. They had been nesting since March, but it seemed that the first nest had failed. Earl’s bent leg seemed to be troubling him more than usual lately, and I worried that old age had caught up with him. Perhaps the nest failure had been too much.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a connection between my fondness for murder mysteries with convoluted plots and clues, and my obsession with the ongoing and vast puzzle that is the crow world. In both, there are clues to follow and put together but, whereas murder mysteries invariably offer a tidy ending where all the threads of information come together, crow watching is more of an ongoing saga. Sometimes crows you’ve known for years just vanish and you’re left to wonder what happened.

While an unresolved plot line would be unacceptable in a Midsommer Murders episode, they’re par for the course in the mysterious world of City Crow Stories.

I was mentally starting to say goodbye to Earl and Echo. After fruitlessly wandering their usual area this weekend, I decided to try a block further north as a last resort.

Bingo! It was Echo who found me, rather than the other way round, and she led me further down the street to the joyful sound of fledglings. I could hear at least two, and possibly three, crow babies tucked up in the tree canopy.

The babies still have blue eyes, so they’ve only been out of the nest for a few days. Earl and Echo must have soldiered on and built a second nest after that early failure.

Earl was nearby, cawing paternally at bicyclists whizzing by on the bike route.

Earl and Echo are old friends of mine, with two chapters to themselves in City Crow Stories 2025, so I’m just thrilled to see that they’ve got more life and parenting adventures ahead of them. These new babies join the ranks of other local crow characters like Sneezy and Dennis — all Earl and Echo descendants.

Earl experiencing a patriotic moment

Earl and Echo’s revised chapter in the 2025 edition of City Crow Stories

© junehunterimages, 2025. 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.