Crows will try to catch, kill and eat small vertebrates that they come across.
Yes indeed, they are hunting all the time when they are foraging on the
ground,in the sense that they are searching for live food like beetles, larvae
(beetle or otherwise), earthworms and also, when they encounter them, small
snakes, small rodents like voles, and shrews. They are NOT specialized at
killing and usually use some sort of stab at, flip it-jump back, etc technique
to kill small rodents without getting bitten themselves. Not sure how they
kill snakes, but the only time I watched one with a garter snake, they held it
down with feet and stabbed.
So they search broadly for hidden prey and use very generalized techniques for
capturing and killing anything they find.
Their gardener-friendly eating of beetle and other larvae was noted many years
ago, when it was calculated that they WAY offset any direct crop damage that
they were accused of.
cheers,
Anne
On Jul 22, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Richard Tkachuck wrote:
We appear to have a crow family in our yard--two young that mew begging for
food. While watching them, I think I saw an adult snag a vole and then eat
it. It did not share with a young. A little while later I saw the same adult
with a small (maybe 6 inch) snake in its beak. Ultimately, this was given to
one of the young which swallowed it head first. Question, do crows hunt for
live food?
Richard Tkachuck
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