I can tell you that I saw a somewhat similar situation involving a Common Raven
and an American Robin's nest. The raven was huge and he landed in a spruce
where I know there is an active robin's nest and preceded to raid the nest,
flying off with parts of the nest and clumps of something else
Early last month at the Moose Visitor Center (Jackson Co), as I was
watching the feeders, a crow flew down to attack a small mammal, possibly a
vole. The crow repeatedly jabbed at the mammal, picking it up and dropping
it. The vole attempted to scramble away, but was apparently maimed by the
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
I watched a crow in IA raid a robin’s nest repeatedly and fly off each time (4
times) with a nestling, probably to feed its own nestlings. Poor robin parents
harassed the crow each time, but not much they could do. That was the end of
that nesting effort. Presumably they started over.
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
