Lynn, Chris, et al,
The incident described to Chris by Lynn does not sound like simple predation to
me. The crow did not make off with the grackle and didn't even kill it, at
least not immediately. My guess would be that this crow has some experience or
instinct about grackles being egg predators that during the crow's nesting
season triggered the observed agonistic behavior. Maybe the grackle just had
the misfortune of unknowingly flying within the crow's nesting territory.
Maybe it was a more targeted act on the part of the crow against a species in
the grackle commonly known by most birds to be a cold-blooded carnivore. I
just think the fact the crow didn't do anything after the assault identifies
this action as something OTHER THAN simple predation on weaker birds (but which
is certainly also worthy of notation).
We will never know for sure what happened here, but I appreciate Lynn bringing
this interesting behavior to our attention. There is a great column by Pete
Dunne in the current issue of Cornell Lab's "Living Bird" about listing, which
includes the listing of moments such as the one Lynn describes.
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
From: cobirds@googlegroups.com
Subject: [cobirds] A Murder of Crows (or by...) - Denver County
Date: Sat, 2 May 2015 11:21:20 -0600
To: cobirds@googlegroups.com
Dear COBIRDS, Yesterday afternoon Lynn Willcockson e-mailed me the following:
"About 20 minutes ago I witnessed a Crow attack a Grackle and kill it.
The Grackle was hopping around on the ground and the Crow flew down on top of
it. There was a struggle but the Crow won. After the Crow flew off I checked
and the Grackle was still breathing but not able to move." “I have
never seen this sort of behavior before or even heard of it - have you??” Lynn
Has anyone had any similar experiences?
Thanks, Chris
Chris A. BlakesleeCentennial, coloradocorvidc...@aol.com
P.S. Lynn added, some people have said to me — "Can I borrow your Crow to take
care of the Grackles in my yard?" :-)
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/EE3849B3-D815-4EDB-98DE-760C582DCBB9%40aol.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Colorado Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/SNT148-W932167F4A7480045AA4B7AC1D40%40phx.gbl.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
