Young Syd represents the newest generation in the Earl and Echo dynasty. She’s one of several crows born in this area last spring who’ve stayed over winter, hanging out with their extended family and learning from their elders.
Earl and Echo are venerable crows, progenitors to many local crow characters. Their offspring include Dennis (born in 2022) and his mate, Dolly, who live just to the west of them, and Sneezy (born in 2023) and his mate, Sue, who moved into a vacancy just east of Earl and Echo last spring.
Sneezy and Sue successfully raised a couple of fledglings, one of them being Syd.
Earl and Echo
Sneezy, Sue and Syd — Summer 2025
Last summer, there were a lot of fledglings in the neighbourhood, especially between Earl and Echo and their kids. It was a bit hard to tell exactly which babies belonged to which parents, as Dennis and Sneezy’s fledglings would wander into Earl and Echo’s block, where they seemed quite welcome.
Crows are usually pretty fierce about guarding their territory against all other crows, but it seems that special dispensation is given for close relatives — or perhaps Earl and Echo are just particularly doting grandparents.
Young Syd (back) hanging out with Earl and Echo during late summer moulting season
By winter, most of the new generation of Earl and Echo descendants had moved on — except for Syd.
You may remember the young crow I videoed catching snowdrops earlier this year. That was our Syd.
Like most youngsters, Syd is an energetic and curious young bird. She’s not nearly as driven as Lou with his relentless compulsion to pick up and examine just about every object that crosses his path, but she has her own foibles.
One of these is the fondness for looking behind her from a low angle. You’ll notice she’s in the same pose in the early photo of her with her parents.
Upside Down (available as a print)
Syd doesn’t have any noticeably distinguishing features, except for a beak that seems to me to be slightly slimmer and narrower than average with an especially pronounced “V” in her nasal bristles.
(Note: I don’t know if Syd is male or female yet, but I’m opting to call her “her” for now.)
You can see a definite family resemblance, in attitude at least, between Syd and her grandpa.
Tenacious Earl (available as a print)
Young Syd (available as a print)
You can see that Syd’s extended family is raising her to be just as wise and tenacious as her forebears.
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