crow fledglings

A Head Full of Crows

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 18 Comments

It’s a recurring condition with me, I’m afraid.

Often my brain gets so overwhelmed with crow thoughts that words fail me. This bout is particularly ill-timed as I am overdue in writing this blog post and I know many of you are awaiting news on the Walkers and other crows. I’m also trying to prepare a talk about crows to be delivered on Hornby Island in less than a week.

Time, therefore, to try and blast through the crow block. Here goes …

CROW BRAIN PART ONE

One of the things weighing on me, and that I’ve been reluctant to share, is that I have worrying news about the Walkers.

I was so thrilled to see that they got through Mr. Walker’s spring eye injury, the giant new house going up right beside their chimney nest and the long hot spring to the point of getting both fledglings safely out of the nest.

Fledgling number one left the nest on July 6. Fledgling number two is much smaller and probably would have stayed nest-bound longer, but I think it was just getting too hot up there, and they exited on July 8.

Baby Two’s last day in the hot nest

Days after Fledgling One was on the ground, I noticed that he or she has avian pox around one side of the mouth and eye, poor thing.

Fledgling Two looks healthier, which is good.

Walker babies, July 14

Walker Baby Two, whose tail feathers don’t seem quite developed yet

Wanda and Baby Two seeking shade in someone’s vegetable garden

Even more worrying; I haven’t seen Mr Walker for just over a week . Wanda seems to be single-parenting both fledglings and is looking pretty exhausted, racing around in this heat all day long.

Wanda on feeding detail

Mr. Walker on July 13, the last time I saw him

I’m hoping that (a) Mr. Walker will reappear and (b) Baby One will manage to fight off the avian pox — but I’m feeling, I have to admit, extremely anxious.

Baby Two going for a stroll, looking for lawn watering refreshment

CROW BRAIN PART TWO

The second thing that has crows flapping around in my head, day and night, is preparing my talk on Crow Watching.

I know, I know, I’ve given talks before and this should be a doddle. Why reinvent the wheel, etc? But every time I revisit the subject I start turning around the “why crows?” question in my mind. New answers, and “better” ways to express them pop up and I feel I have to work them in.

It’s like having to write the dreaded “artist’s statement” — wrestling the jello of thoughts, feelings and doubts about your work; why it’s important; why anyone but you should care — into something vaguely coherent (and less than four hours long!)

I’m at the “incomprehensible spaghetti bowl full of ideas” stage at the moment, but hoping that I’ll have the strands separated by next week.

I see I’m starting to use a lot of food metaphors, which is my brain telling me it’s time to start making dinner.

I’ll say goodbye for now and hope that the crows will come and magically write my presentation for me as I sleep, like the little birds and mice in Cinderella!

Or maybe I’ll just write the whole thing in “crow.”

 

You can find details on the Hornby Island Crow talk HERE — scroll down to July 27.

Also, I’ll be giving an online one for the Stanley Park Ecological Society on September 13 (details to come.)

 

 

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© 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.

Bongo News

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Walkers, there has been some friction on the Bongo-Walker borderline.

Bella and Bongo’s fledglings are very mobile now and prone to showing off their new flying prowess by cruising all over the neighbourhood, often landing too close to the chimney nest for the Walkers’ comfort.

Much parental cawing ensues.

Bongo and Bella staring down the Walkers after a bit of a territorial conflict yesterday …

In the next video, you will note that Bella makes a more “normal” rattle call and Bongo chimes in with his signature bong call. I assume that the “bong” is his own idiosyncratic interpretation of “rattle.” Anyway, Bella gives him quite the look afterwards — whether admiring, or confused, it’s hard to say …

 

Someone asked me if I thought any of Bongo’s fledglings might take after him, bonging-wise. I don’t know how these things are passed on, but I do know that one of the fledglings is already showing signs of being a vocal virtuoso.

You can see that this one has a lot to say and is already starting to make the bowing motion that is part of the overall rattle/bong performance.

Clearly, this one is the chatterbox of the family!

The Bongo clan seems now to be down to two fledglings. It’s hard to be certain with them flying around so much. Up until yesterday evening when these videos were taken, I was almost sure there was only one — so number three could potentially still be out there flying around the neighbourhood.

As you can see, the Bongettes are showing signs of becoming teen crows. Their blue eyes are now a lovely soft grey. Their parents are already showing them how to pick up their own food, rather than always shovelling it into their beaks via the direct deposit method.

Grey eyes instead of blue, but the pink beak colouring will last all summer and sometimes longer.

I’ve had an amazing couple of weeks following the progress of the Bongo-Bella babies and have amassed quite a collection of photos.

One of my favourite phases was the rose garden period where flowery garden fences seemed to be their preferred hangouts. Their eyes were still blue at that point.

The next image — in which  baby crowses supposes that roses is … food?  — is such a favourite that I made it into a print for my shop.

Rose Garden

All baby crows spend a whole summer sampling all manner of things — wood chips, moss, bits of paper, their own feathers — trying to figure out the all- important “Is It Food Or Is It Not Food?” question. I imagine rose petals could fall tantalizingly between categories.

I’ve also made a set of Baby Crow postcards, some of which feature the Bongo babies (along with some of White Wing’s and others in the neighbourhood this spring.)

Never a dull moment at this time of year. I’ve noticed both the Wings and the Bongos chasing squirrels up and down trees at a rate that could have them auditioning for the next movie in the Fast and Furious franchise. On the other hand, I also noticed this squirrel chasing some of Bongo and Bella’s fledglings; hard to say if with malevolent purpose or just for fun.

Possibly a juvenile squirrel messing around with a fledgling crow — a full mischief bundle!

It’s a tiring time of year for crow parents, leaving so little time for Bongo’s operatic offerings, but hopefully, he is managing to pass along some of that talent to the next generation of potentially bonging crows.

Who knows, maybe they’ll go in their own direction and take up pinging or chicken impersonations like the crow up the road. Each crow must find their unique path to creative fulfilment, after all.

I leave the last word to this vocal up and comer …

 

 

For more on Bongo and Bella:

Bongo and Bella’s Announcement

/ 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.”

 

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© 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.