earl and echo crows

Bill and Earl Nesting News

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 2 Comments

The nesting season started early this year, with spring about a month ahead of schedule in the Pacific Northwest. Many crow pairs already have fledglings out and about, learning all about the pleasures and pitfalls of life outside of the nest.

About half of the early nesters had something go awry with that first effort, forcing them to start over. Bill and Earl’s nests fell into this category, putting them at a bit of a disadvantage; if they do manage to raise fledglings this time, the weather will be even hotter, drier and more challenging.

BILL AND IRENE (WITH BACK-UP BETTY)

Bill and Irene got off to a flying start this year, being the first crow pair I saw with an active nest. They have the added advantage of Betty, their offspring from a couple of springs ago, who acts as back-up nest security.

Irene sat on the nest for at least two weeks, and all seemed to be going well until one day I went by and there was no sign of Bill, Irene or Betty, and the nest seemed abandoned.

Bill and Irene live several blocks from me, so I can only check in on them once or twice a day, so I didn’t see what caused the nest to fail. It was in a fairly small tree, so my guess would be a ground-based predator, perhaps a raccoon or a cat.

Mysteriously, Bill, Irene and Betty remained absent for so long that another crow pair arrived and started building a nest in their territory.

Furious Bill approaches the newcomers

News of this outrage must have reached Bill and family, because they returned from their mini-break with a vengeance.

Much chasing and shouting ensued.

Below: Irene states her opinion.

Currently, the two crow families seem to have reached an uneasy truce. Irene has vanished again, so I am assuming they have a new nest and she is sitting on the eggs again.

Betty the crow guarding her territory from a leafy branch

Betty, keeping an eye on things

Meanwhile, Bill and Betty take turns in patrolling the area and making sure their territorial lines are being respected.

This is Betty, distinguished by her one sticking-out feather on the left wing.

Betty is not only unrelenting at chasing off other crows, but, like Fearless Fred, occasionally tries to pull my dog’s tail. She is quite the small character.

Bill in full nest-guarding regalia with maximally fluffed head, chest and leg feathers. He somehow manages to look twice his normal size in this mode.

 

EARL AND ECHO

Meanwhile, half a block away, venerable local crows, Earl and Echo are nesting.  These two have been successful parents year after year and have produced quite the dynasty, including Dennis and Sneezy.

I do worry about them though, as they are getting on in years and the bent leg that Earl has hobbled about on for the entire time I’ve known him (at least five or six years now) seems to be giving him more trouble. Sometimes he misses a landing at the first attempt, and I often see him standing on his one good leg.

Echo has her own challenges, being blind in her left eye.

Like Bill and Irene, Earl and Echo got off to an early nesting start, building a nest high up in a tree in their territory.

The height of the nest, and the increase in leaf cover since I took the photo above made it hard to see what was going on up there.

As of yesterday, I can report that they’ve abandoned that first nest, for whatever reason, and now Echo is sitting on a new one in a different tree.

Earl and Echo’s new nest.

Last week, Earl was having some problems with other crows on their turf, forcing Echo to come down from the nest to help him repel the invaders.
You can see in the video below that she was in full, grumpy “don’t make me come over there” mode, assessing the situation with her one functioning eye.

Earl and Echo’s neighbours to the west are Bill and Irene. The two families seem to have the sort of sensible arrangement arrived at by mature, diplomacy-minded crows who don’t want to fight if they don’t need to. Occasionally they will get close to each other’s territory, resulting in some pro-forma cawing, but no actual battling for ground. Bill and Earl are old enough to realize that unnecessary brawling is a waste of precious energy. They could be advisors to certain humans …

 

 

 

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Hoorah for Earl and Echo

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 4 Comments

First of all, I apologize for the vast gap in blog posts. I see my last one was in April.
In my defence, it’s been a busy year of weddings, overseas visitors, publishing a revised book and the 2026 City Crow Calendar, and trying to keep up with the unexpected success of my needle-felted Party Crows.
In between those distractions and my thrice daily walks to walk the dog and check in on the local crows, there has been little time for actually writing things down.

This does not mean, of course, that the crow world has been devoid of exciting developments; on the contrary, it’s been an action-packed spring, with more new fledglings than we’ve seen in this neighbourhood for years.

So … lots to catch up on.

Let’s start with Earl and Echo.

I was beginning to worry about them: Earl with his increasingly bent leg and halting gait; Echo with her partial blindness; and the fact that both of them are getting on in crow years.

Earl enjoyed a small blast of social media fame a week or so ago due to the image below.

The image is the picture I took of Earl, puddle-plodgling, displayed on the LCD camera viewfinder, spangled with actual raindrops and captured by my iPhone camera. Unexpectedly, the raindrops magnified the screen’s grid pattern, and the rainbow raindrops were rendered in a grid pattern, somehow combining real-life and technology in one groovy image — which is now available as a print.

After the rainy days, I went to look for Earl and Echo, but failed to find them in their usual haunts. They had been nesting since March, but it seemed that the first nest had failed. Earl’s bent leg seemed to be troubling him more than usual lately, and I worried that old age had caught up with him. Perhaps the nest failure had been too much.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a connection between my fondness for murder mysteries with convoluted plots and clues, and my obsession with the ongoing and vast puzzle that is the crow world. In both, there are clues to follow and put together but, whereas murder mysteries invariably offer a tidy ending where all the threads of information come together, crow watching is more of an ongoing saga. Sometimes crows you’ve known for years just vanish and you’re left to wonder what happened.

While an unresolved plot line would be unacceptable in a Midsommer Murders episode, they’re par for the course in the mysterious world of City Crow Stories.

I was mentally starting to say goodbye to Earl and Echo. After fruitlessly wandering their usual area this weekend, I decided to try a block further north as a last resort.

Bingo! It was Echo who found me, rather than the other way round, and she led me further down the street to the joyful sound of fledglings. I could hear at least two, and possibly three, crow babies tucked up in the tree canopy.

The babies still have blue eyes, so they’ve only been out of the nest for a few days. Earl and Echo must have soldiered on and built a second nest after that early failure.

Earl was nearby, cawing paternally at bicyclists whizzing by on the bike route.

Earl and Echo are old friends of mine, with two chapters to themselves in City Crow Stories 2025, so I’m just thrilled to see that they’ve got more life and parenting adventures ahead of them. These new babies join the ranks of other local crow characters like Sneezy and Dennis — all Earl and Echo descendants.

Earl experiencing a patriotic moment

Earl and Echo’s revised chapter in the 2025 edition of City Crow Stories

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Spring 2024 Crow Sagas Part 4

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 1 Comment

THE EARL AND ECHO TEAM EFFORT

Earl an Echo had a busy summer last year. They fledged their youngster a bit later than the other crows and two of them are still with mom and dad.

One of Earl and Echo’s offspring this winter — like dad, this one poses for Dutch Master-like portraits. He or she also makes little sneezing noises, which I’m not sure is a symptom of something or just a foible

Earl collecting nest lining material in early April. You can see here one of his distinguishing features — the frilly upper wing feathers on his right shoulder.

Echo is sitting on the nest early this year, high up in a large cherry tree and having the extra beaks and wings has come in handy already.

The other day we noticed that a squirrel was getting too close to the nest for Echo’s comfort. A high speed chase ensued with dad and the kids pursuing the squirrel up and down every branch until the interloper managed to leap into a neighbouring tree and escape. I believe he or she will think twice before climbing that particular tree again.

Magnificent Earl, identifiable also by his right leg, which bends inward. Also, his  always dignified demeanor (except when chasing squirrels)

Echo, recognizable by her blind left eye and constant head motion

 

Tomorrow: Bongo and Bella: will Bongo bong?

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