Spring 2024 Crow Sagas Part 2

April 18, 2024April 16, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

RETURN OF THE WALKERS

When I said in the last post that I’m “almost certain” that White Wing is gone, it’s because you never really know for sure with crows.

Take, for example, the Walkers. Since they both disappeared last summer I thought they were gone for good.

Mr. Walker, who used to walk with us daily, suffered an injury to his left eye at about this time last year. Wanda had already lost the sight in one of her eyes (the right) several years earlier.

I followed the Walkers’ progress obsessively through the 2023 nesting season. Mr. Walker seemed badly affected by his eye problem, but pulled himself together enough for them to build a nest and fledge two little crows. Tragically, both fledglings had very bad avian pox. Starting with Mr. Walker the whole family disappeared completely in the space of a week in July.

With no sign of any of them all of that summer, fall and most of the winter, I assumed that the Walkers were gone for good.

Wanda was always by far the more timid of the Walkers, always leaving Mr. W to be the “public facing” family member— getting out there and hustling the necessities of crow life.

Wanda, June 2019

Suddenly, this January, Wanda was back. Not only was she back, but she seems to have undergone a personality transplant, transforming from Shrinking Violet to Boadicea.

Wanda, after apparently spending winter in Warrior Queen School — January 2024

Even more miraculously, Mr. Walker is also back.

The Walkers, April 2024

But there are big changes in the Walker family dynamic — Wanda is now by far the bolder of the two, while Mr. W hangs back and observes. I fear that Mr. Walkers walking-beside-us days are over as he’s now very reluctant to be on the ground at all, probably still adjusting to his limited range of vision.

Mr. Walker, March 2024

I’m not sure now nesting season will go for them this year, as Wanda will have to rely on Mr. W to bring her food once she’s on egg sitting duty. Perhaps Mr. W will get a little bolder, or they may just decide to sit this season out until he adjusts a little more. I guess I’ll find out when we get home in a month.

As soon as we put the suitcases down I’ll be out there doing a neighbourhood crow check!

But I do love that the Walkers have managed to (a) survive (b) stick together and (c) modify their couple roles to adjust to the hand they’ve been dealt. Their story reminds me a lot of George and Mabel’s story of survival and flexibility. Mabel supported George when he lost half of his top beak and went on to be a dominant force on the local crow scene, even after George had passed.

Tomorrow: Benjamin update!

__________________________________________________________________________________________

© junehunterimages, 2024. 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.

Bongo and Bella’s Announcement

June 1, 2023May 31, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 10 Comments

Mr. Bongo Crow and Ms. Bella Crow are proud to announce that they have fledglings!

Quite a few, it turns out …

I heard some baby burbling coming from the trees on the morning walk earlier this week, but it wasn’t until lunchtime that I spotted the first one.

There is honestly nothing I find more adorable than the grumpy little face of a newly fledged crow — those blue eyes and the down-turned little pink mouth edges.

Baby, you may notice, was having a bit of a hard time swallowing the peanut bits that mum or dad had just crammed into that little pink beak.

There was more soft quacking coming from the upper tree branches, so I assumed there was at least one more up there.

That evening we were amazed to see one of the youngsters actually doing a bit of rudimentary flapping from tree to tree. The flying proficiency leads me to believe that Bongo and Bella have been doing a top notch job of keeping their little family well hidden and protected for at least a week to get them to this “off the ground” state.

You can see from the view of a pop-up wing (below), that they’re still not fully developed. Early flying efforts are a challenging combination of mechanical issues and inexperience!

The last thing we saw before going home that night was either Bongo on Bella on sentinel duty atop the school’s flagpole — scouring the 360 degree horizon for potential danger...

First-fledgling time is a sort of Christmas-Morning-With-High- Anxiety experience for me, ridiculous as that may be. Couldn’t get to sleep the next night and I was awake and out of the house before 6 am.

In spite of wandering their block for a while, I saw only mom and dad — still on guard duty.

Bongo and Bella came down for peanuts, but didn’t take them to feed babies breakfast — just stashed them for later use.

The lunchtime walk was looking similarly fledgling-free until I decided to make one more pass (poor Geordie) and heard a little quack. Looked up and spotted baby number one.

I could see another shape up there and moved around to get a view of what I thought would be baby number two. Surprise, surprise — TWO more ridiculously cute little figures perched together!

Look at those pristine little feet. It must feel good to have a little toe stretch while learning how to cling on to branches — an important new skill.

Fledgling one having a bit of a wing stretch …

Fledglings two and three, with three doing some more toe flexing …

I spent quite a while admiring the three of them until my neck got too kinked from pointing the camera straight up. All the while, proud dad Bongo kept me company down below.

He even made the official birth-bong announcement …

Yes, that WAS four bongs.

There was indeed a fourth fledging, but he or she didn’t make it. I found a detached immature crow wing on the ground yesterday, so the unlucky one must have fallen victim to a raccoon or cat.

The surviving three are far from out of the woods. Only 50% of crow fledglings survive to the end of their first year and I suspect that number might be higher given the extra challenges presented by the hot dry summers of recent years.

Bongo and Bella are not registered for baby gifts, but they did have a couple of small requests in lieu:

Please put water out so that parent birds can soak food for the fledglings, and those still in the nest, to keep them hydrated. It’s only May and already, here in usually wet Vancouver, there is no trace of puddle water and the dirt is too packed to dig up worms. Keep changing the water throughout the day and keep the bowl clean to stop the spread of diseases.
If you must have an outdoor cat, please keep him/her indoors during fledgling season. To you, your cat is “Fluffy Pudding-kins.” To crow (and all bird) parents he or she is “Harbinger of Doom/Destroyer of Worlds.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

© junehunterimages, 2023. 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.

Mr Walker Strides On

March 11, 2023March 10, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 1 Comment

Mr. Walker is number four in my City Crow Stories book of crow characters — and his life seems to be rambling on much as it has in previous years.

He and his mate Wanda wait for the dog and I each morning. If Mr. W is busy in the alleyway checking out the bins, Wanda will let him know it’s time.

Time to drop whatever he’s up to and get himself into position for the daily gallop alongside the “bringers of the peanuts” to the sacred spot at the foot of the massive cherry tree.

Here he is in action this very morning — showing fine promenading form once he gets neck and neck with Geordie, the dog …

As per usual, he strides/ambles/scampers alongside Geordie, waits for him to have the customary sniff at his tree, and then up onto his pedestal for the peanut payoff.

As is also routine, Wanda, having arrived at the tree via air (I’ve never seen her lower herself to pedestrian pastimes), drops down from the branches above to get in first dibs.

Mr. Walker this morning, looking as suave as ever

I wrote last summer about the Walkers’ early nesting failure and, though they did seem to be working on a second nest, I think the stress of another hot dry summer led them to just give up in order to concentrate on keeping themselves fed and hydrated.

It’s a pretty exhausting business raising fledglings, as seen in the book with pictures from 2021 when they raised two of them

They went AWOL for the latter part of the summer and imagined them just kicking back in the shade, tiny sunglasses balanced on their beaks, waiting for the cooler weather. Far too hot for any jogging, even for peanuts.

And, indeed, by fall they were back at the appointed spot — Mr. Walker ready, willing and eager to get back into training for the peanut Olympics.

On this occasion, for once, he beat Wanda to the goodies!

The simple reliability of this little daily ritual is strangely comforting — and Mr. Walker’s enthusiastic perambulation technique always brings a smile.