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.

Benjamin Beats The Odds

March 17, 2023March 16, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 11 Comments

This is the last in my series of City Crow Stories updates for now, and concerns Ben, the crow with one very badly bent foot.

The stories I tell about crows are true and, therefore, do not always come with happy endings. For many months I assumed that Benjamin’s story was along the lines of: “spirited but injured crow tries his hardest to beat the odds and stay alive, but fails in the end.”

I took the photograph of Ben seen below on May 8, 2022. He’d managed to make it through most of the fractious and competitive nesting season, without seeming to have a settled territory of his own. He always seemed to be with several birds so I couldn’t even really tell if he had a mate who had his back, as Mabel did for George.

After the long damp spring came an even longer, hot, dry summer which lasted well into October. Autumn was barely sputtering to a start when she was rear ended by a wildly impatient Winter. All of this happened without a single sighting of Ben.

As I thought about writing my City Crow updates, I envisioned having to share the sad news of both Mabel and Ben’s disappearances.

It was, then, a bit of an early holiday gift to have him just suddenly pop up again. He came surrounded by a rowdy gang of other, able-footed crows and walked right up to me as we’d seen each other only the day before.

The return of Benjamin, December 2022

I did, of course, ask him where he’d been, as is only polite. He answered me in a series of caws that could have been an animated recounting of his epic adventures — or he may just have been asking for peanuts.

I guess we’ll never know …

Benjamin, January 2023

February 2023

The story of Benjamin continues to unfold, with random appearances every few weeks, just to let me know he’s still out there, doing his best.

The stories of ALL the crows are constantly evolving. If I only had the time, I could write a daily post relaying all the small things I notice, the beautiful moments and the never ending puzzle of the crow world. The crows in your neighbourhood are just as fascinating as the seven I wrote about, and I strongly encourage you to tune into your own local crow soap operas.

Thanks so much for following along with these stories and to the many of you who purchased copies of my book. Only four copies remain on my shelf, which is pretty amazing for a book that was self published and un-advertised.

Crows are excellent story tellers, so I think it was a good decision to mostly hand the narrative reins over to them.

For the rest of the City Crow Stories … A Year On posts:

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P/Earl & Echo — Perfect For Crow Watching

March 15, 2023March 14, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

Sorry — I got a bit behind on what I’d planned to be a daily series of posts about the seven crows in City Crow Stories.

Covid still gets in the way of the best laid plans.

Not to be confused with Corvids, which ARE the best laid plan.

Anyway, the former arrived in our household last week and so my husband is confined to our bedroom while the pets and I sleep at the far end of the house. Bringing him meals, checking in on him via FaceTime (which is very weird) and trying not to get sick myself, is proving surprisingly time consuming. Luckily he’s not too ill, mostly just tired of looking at the same four walls for days on end.

But I think I have a few minutes, to write about Pearl— who I’m becoming increasingly sure is actually an Earl. Apologies in advance for typos as my copy editor is in quarantine.

Pearl was crow number six of the seven in the book, and s/he, like White Wing, is easy to spot from afar — in his or her case, because of a distinctive bent foot and pigeon-toed stance.

Male or female, I still insist that he’s channelling the same enigmatic confident captured in Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring.”

I wrote about Earl and Echo quite recently when I was working on my Crow Watching presentation last fall. They came to mind as particularly great examples of the kinds of crows with distinguishing features that are easier to start keeping track of in your own neighbourhood.

White Wing has her obvious white feather to tell her apart, but she loses it from time to time, and her mate doesn’t have any particularly exceptional features.

Point of Clarification: I’m certain that Mr. Wing is, in fact, a unique bird — and I’m sure that, to White Wing, he’s one in a million — it’s just that my limited observational skills can’t yet tell him apart from other crows.

Earl has the added bonus (from an ID-ing perspective) of having a mate who also stands out from the crow-d, even from quite a distance. Echo is blind in one eye and her head is in perpetual motion as she (I’m almost sure she’s the female) uses her hearing to compensate for the vision loss.

If she does detect danger she’s just as fierce as Earl in seeing off the intruders

Earl and Echo, like all crow couples, have each other’s backs …

They take a few quiet moments while Dennis the Menace (profiled in T he Young And The Restless) is off having fun with his gang.

Earl is reliably to be found in the same general area each and every day.

Keeping an eye on mountain snow conditions …

Wondering if the snow is every going to stop …

Enjoying a nice paddle when the snow melts …

Promenading with Echo …

I expect to see Earl, Echo and Dennis flying about with twigs soon as nest building season gets underway. It will be time for me to start keeping an extra sharp eye out to see which of them vanishes for 2 to 3 weeks later in spring to incubate the eggs.

Then we’ll know for sure if we’ve got a Pearl or an Earl.