Lou’s Pastimes

April 12, 2026April 12, 2026 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 6 Comments

Most of the adult crows are currently immersed in all things nest-related. Younger crows, like Lou, who have remained with their parents for a year or two, are often designated “nest helpers.”

Lou’s nest-helping forté seems to be hanging out on the eastern territorial border, keeping an eye out for Norman and Nancy (the neighbouring crows) and making sure they don’t get too close to said border.

Young crow standing with head and neck extended up in a very alert posture

Of course, Norman and Nancy are pretty busy with their own nesting efforts, so this leaves Lou with lots of time on his hands/feet. Luckily, he has many, many interests to keep himself occupied while Mom and Dad (Mavis and Marvin) are busy elsewhere.

First of all, there’s just hanging about …

Young crow hanging upside down from a branch, holding one with one foot

Sliding on bin lids …

Young crow slipping and sliding on a plastic garbage can lid, wings out

Thinking deep thoughts and gaining new perspectives …

Young crow bent over with head looking back between their legs

Young Lou the crow stands contemplatively in front of a storm drain cover Photography by June Hunter ©junehunterimages2026

Lou is never idle. He’s constantly on the move, which is probably good for his personal security, although challenging for his paparazzi.

Lou’s biggest enthusiasm is for finding things. You name it, he’s found it.
I showed him discovering coins, pebbles, berries, moss and mice in my earlier post about Lou, but that was just the beginning of his street-combing career.

He’s since found a lens from a pair of sunglasses …

The black box from a tiny aircraft … ?

A fancy hair clip …

A nice chunky eraser …

A whole delicious apple …

Of course, I only watch Lou for a few minutes a day, so I can only imagine what else he’s unearthed when I’m not around!

Apart from finding, he’s also very proficient at hiding treasures …

He did take a few moments out of his very busy schedule the other day to land on a branch beside me and make a short but eloquent speech.

While his parents are busy, they’re obviously keeping an eye on Lou and sweep by to check on him from time to time. Earlier this week, there was something alarming on the horizon …

Lou didn’t even have time to call the alarm before Dad arrived on the scene.

Nest Helper Notes:

I sometimes wonder how useful these yearly crow “helpers” actually are.
Helpfulness probably varies between individual young crows, but I know that, during the three years that Marvin and Mavis had their previous “assistant”, Lucky, with them, they had no new fledglings. It was only when Lucky left them last spring that they raised a new pair of fledglings, one of which is Lou.

I once overheard one of the volunteers at the Riefel Bird Sanctuary remark that they were pleased to see that the offspring of the sanctuary’s resident Sandhill Crane pair had moved on that spring, because the young one sticking around for a couple of years had impeded them in their breeding/nesting efforts. At the time, I wondered if that was also true of crow families, in certain cases

© 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.

Pink Blossom and Snow

March 10, 2026March 10, 2026 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 6 Comments

Yesterday, I saw my first twig-toting crow of the season, heralding the start of nesting season.

Plum blossoms bloomed a full month early, and humans are considering spring wardrobe and patio-dining options. The crows, clearly, think it’s spring — so we were all a bit surprised to see Vancouver get its first snowfall of the entire winter this morning.

Still, we had fun, the crows and I. Especially this youngster who spent at least ten minutes trying to catch every single falling flake in her beak.

She seemed determined to catch them all — great goalie potential!

Lou seemed a bit dubious about the white stuff at first …

But soon got into the swing of things!

There was a special kind of beauty, seeing the big snowflakes dancing with the pink blossoms.

The snow is all melted now, so it seems as if I might have dreamed the whole thing.

I’ll be back on the lookout for twig-carrying crows tomorrow!

Happy Crowsgiving

October 13, 2025 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 1 Comment

With apologies to readers of my blog who may be wondering where I’ve been for the past few weeks, here is a very short Crowsgiving greeting.

I have been going on many long crow walks, and there is so much news for the crow-verse, it’s hard to know where to start relaying it all.

But for now, on this Canadian Thanksgiving, here is a little round-up of the past week or so with some of the local crows.

One of the most joyful things this year has been the number of crow fledglings making it through their risky first summer — many more than I’ve seen over the past few years. Several youngsters seem to be sticking with Mom and Dad for the fall.

Lucky II is Marvin and Mavis’s fledgling from this spring and seems set to stick around, replacing Lucky I, who stayed with his parents for three years before moving on to start his own family this year. Lucky II is already a forceful personality!

Barry and Beryl, who live on the street with lots of berries, have Baby Berry and Fearless Fred (and his more conservative mate, Florence) have both of their fledglings with them, learning Fred’s fearless ways.

Crow harvest festival has been in full swing, with nuts being hauled out of trees and the road being used as a nutcracker. If dropping their bounty from a height doesn’t work, the crows wait for cars to run over them and then race in to scoop up the fragments — hopefully before the squirrels or other crows get their first.

Now that the nuts are almost all gone, it will be time to move up the street to harvest the berries on the dogwood trees. After that, it will be Persimmon-fest, when the big orange fruit reaches bird-snacking perfection in November. The persimmons are a big favourite with the starlings, but the crows manage to get their share, of course.

I hope your Thanksgiving is sociable and bountiful too!

Lucky II on bin day — the crows’ weekly fun fest!

© 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.