Spring 2024 Crow Sagas — Part 1

April 17, 2024April 16, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 6 Comments

I’m in England now (fingers crossed!) — but before I left I felt I had to write a little catch-up on all of the local crow news. There’s so much to write about, I’ve divided them up into the stories of each crow family I follow, to appear over the next few days.

I notice that I’ve most often written about ravens lately, while it’s crows that mostly make up the fabric of my days.

So why do most of the recent blog posts tend to be raven-themed? Well, ravens are magnificent of course, which is reason enough. Also, as the snow melts, getting up to the mountains to see them will be harder, making them a bit of a seasonal delight.

But it’s also because we usually see ravens on a limited few hours on a trip to the mountains so they naturally make a nice little self-contained story. I don’t really know the minutiae and plot twists of their daily lives.

Crows, on the other hand, form complex sagas that consume my daily life!

The Crow Chronicles seethe with mystery, comedy and tragedy. Each and every day I gather more observations to write about, parse and puzzle over; ending up with a churning ocean of information. How to pull all the plot lines together??? No wonder George R. R. Martin never got to that last chapter of Songs of Ice and Fire!!

My literary problems are as nothing compared to Mr. Martin’s — but it IS always easier to put off writing the epic crow post in favour of a more simple tale of a day out seeing (or not seeing) ravens.

So, before I left, so that the stories don’t exist solely in my own head, I resolved to write the latest chapters in The Crow Sagas.

There may be more spelling/grammar mistakes than usual — no time for editing!!

To start with, the saddest tale.

A REQUIEM FOR WHITE WING

The Wings, in happier days

I’m almost certain that White Wing, one of the crows I’ve known the longest has flown to the great joyful Crow Roost in the sky.

White Wing on October 15, 2023

Last fall, she never seemed to recover from the moulting season and I saw her being attacked by a large group of the rowdy, roaming summer’s end crows. I managed to shoo them off that time, but clearly White Wing was not doing well. I would seek her out, trying to find her without the other crows around, to slip her a few quiet peanuts. Mr Wing was usually nearby her, but he had his own problems with the loss of sight in one eye that came on last summer.

Mr Wing during moulting season, 2023

All winter, White Wing’s signature white feather never quite grew in fully.

The last day I saw White Wing, January 9, 2024

The last time I saw her the feather was just starting to grow in again and I hoped she’d make it to spring, but that day in January was just before the killing cold snap that hit us mid-month. That seemed to be the end for her. I don’t think her incompletely grown-back feathers could keep her warm enough as, even before it got super-cold, I’d see her trying to keep warm on top of chimneys. I haven’t seen any sign of her since the nights hit lows of -20.

White Wing and a fledgling from summer 2023

The Wings were some of the most successful of the local crow parents, year after year, so it’s some consolation to know that there are a lot of little Wing genes flapping around out there — although I’ve yet to see another local bird with White Wings errant white feather.

I’m unsure what happened to Mr. Wing.

Tomorrow: Better News about another crow family!

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All Season Crows

February 2, 2024February 1, 2024 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 11 Comments

A month into 2024, and the crows, like the rest of us, have already experienced several seasons.

Vancouver has had “mild and wet” followed by “bloody freezing” and “snowpocalypse” leading, inevitably to “slushmageddon” with, “record-breakingly warm and wet” to round out the month.

We’re all suffering from weather whiplash!

2024 began with pretty standard Wet Coast weather — good conditions for “crows in puddles” photography.

Marvin, Mavis and Lucky (right) debate puddle ownership with Norman and Nancy (January 8)

By mid-month temperatures had plunged to around -13C at night (colder with the wind chill factor) and it was “tuck your feet up into the pantaloons” time for the crows …

… and “wake up at the crack of dawn to check the hummingbird feeder” for me.

After several frigid days the cold snap eased — and the snow started.

It kept on snowing until our neighbourhood was an unrecognizable winter wonderland. The human inhabitants shovelled … and shovelled … and shovelled some more.

Sometimes there was just too much shovelling …

People got around on skis and toboggans and schools were closed for two days in a row. If you didn’t HAVE to get somewhere, it was magical.

“Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow” — Christina Rossetti

One of my favourite moments was seeing a little girl in a pink snowsuit passionately declaring while throwing herself face-first into the snow, “This is the BEST day of my life!”

Of course, she probably didn’t have to do any shovelling!

My biggest regret: not getting a picture of the night-time unicyclist pedalling through the snow with a plastic toboggan tucked under one arm.

More standard snow commuting options — dig out the car or risk a bike ride.

The crows, unequipped with shovels or sleds, just had to forge their own way through the drifts.

Especially for last year’s fledglings, it must have been confusing to find their normal perches inaccessible. Roofs, railings and branches were suddenly at capacity with snow, making Hydro wires the most reliable landing option.

At least one crow did some of his or her own “digging” to make more room.

A little bit of snow crow semaphore …

Send …………………………………………peanuts ………………………………………… please!

Of course, this being Vancouver, the magic was fleeting and there were more days of slush than there had been of snow.

Slightly confused gull

Lucky in slush

Sparky doing his best in the slush

Vancouver rain acts like a fire hose, and we were soon back to our seasonally normal colour palette of black, white and grey.

Bongo in his damp monochrome world

On the plus side, it’s now back to excellent puddle photography weather!

It’s so mild that it feels … sneakily … unreliably … a bit like spring.

The hellebores are in full bloom!

I haven’t had a chance pick some, place them in a bowl photograph them yet, but I will as soon as it stops raining.

In the meantime, here’s a tiny (literally) sneak peak at a little hellebore- happiness-raven inspired thing I’ve been working on …

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Hyper-Local Crow News

November 26, 2023November 25, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 10 Comments

Marvin and Mavis have been our “backyard” crows since 2017.

Whenever I’d go out onto the back deck, I’d know that any crow waiting out there or on the neighbour’s roof would be one of them.

Marvin and Mavis (AKA Judgemental Crows) 2017

Don’t worry, they’re still fine!

Plus, Lucky, their 2022 fledgling, is still with them. I see them every day, and all three look tip top.

It’s hard to tell Marvin and Mavis apart at the moment, but Lucky is usually busy and curiou, checking out roof fittings, stray bits of plastic and twigs. Her parents are generally more focussed on “grown-up” crow pursuits like allo-preening, finding edible items and feuding with the new neighbours.

Those neighbours are the reason we don’t see Marvin and Mavis in the yard as often these days.

The Newbies

This pair arrived last winter, nested in the tree across the alley from our garden in the summer and naturally claimed our backyard as theirs. It IS very close to their nesting tree, and years of construction and tree loss in the neighbourhood forced M&M a bit further away.

Marvin and Mavis, in two previous nesting seasons, built nests in the same tree, but were raided by raccoons there so often that they gave up on it.

I’m not sure how “The New Crows” fared with the raccoons, but it seems they’re here to stay — so this week, I gave up mentally calling them “the new ones” and named them — Nancy and Norman.

Marvin and Mavis still visit the garden from time to time — caws for cawing, extreme feather-fluffing and occasional outraged dive-bombing between the families.

But mostly, it’s the cawing.

Team Marvin and Mavis have a clear edge on this front — for two reasons.

First: aptitude. These two have long been experts in the Wall Of Sound technique.

In fact, I wrote about their vocal prowess way back in 2018 in a post titled, you guessed it, Wall of Sound. The two of them have always had the ability to meld their voices into a what sounds like a full-on murder.

Secondly, with the addition of Lucky, they’re well on the way to being powerhouse vocal trio with the ability (at least in their own minds) to move mountains with the power of sound.

Here’s the whole family running through some warm-up exercises the other day …

Lucky’s still in training, and I recently had the chance to observe just how serious the tuition regimen is.

It was a classic two family face-off.

Marvin, Mavis and Lucky had the height advantage in the tree in front of the house. Watch the crow on the right carefully …

Lucky is in the middle, partly obscured by the branch, but you can see one of her parents giving her a good hard prod every time she even thinks about taking a break from her vocal efforts.

A proud family tradition needs to be upheld — and Norman and Nancy need to be reminded of who is in charge here — so no time for slacking!

Norman and Nancy, however, seem relatively unimpressed — seen here taking a few moments to compose a thoughtful (and loud) response.

I’m hoping that, over the quieter winter months, we might reach some sort of detente, allowing both families to stick around with slightly less racket.

I look forward to keeping up with my old crowquaintances AND getting to know Norma and Nancy better.