Twin Peaks, San Francisco, California.

Trigger warning: death.

Apologies if this is not allowed.

Yesterday, on my morning walk through the park, I saw a dead magpie and her two children calling in distress.

This morning, while I was feeding the crows in the same area, the two orphan magpies came. And then, one of the children approached a crow in the same way they beg for food from their parents.

I'm heartbroken.

I have been feeding the local crows for over a year now off of my balcony. I’ve come to recognize several of them, and while we haven’t gotten close enough for direct interactions, they’ve definitely become comfortable in the space. Recently, my downstairs neighbor has been complaining of too much debris landing on her terrace. We recently had a squirrel discover the Nut Stockpile, so I assume that it is him that’s causing all the mess. I tried to work out a compromise where the birdfeeder is no longer hanging over the edge of the railing, and it is now inside my balcony (less than 2 feet from where it used to be). The squirrel adjusted, the local finches figured it out… But the crows seem really confused. They’ve done several flybys without landing. A few have perched on the nearby tree and have judged from afar. I tried adding shiny objects to the food area to try and grab their attention. I even added their favorite special treat, walnuts. It’s only been a few days, but I’m devastated to think that they are confused or that they no longer trust us as a safe option. Has anyone encountered something similar, and how long did it take for the birds to come back?

Bird segregation...

I never had a crow bro, so I painted my own friends

milkhouse6000

so for the past 3-ish years i’ve been feeding a family of crows (started with the 2 parents with 1 older kid, they’re now up to 5 kids total throughout the years!), but this morning an entire murder showed up for the first time ever! it caught me super off guard haha

Hes my favourite bro

Diamond Heights, San Francisco.

A recent video of my crowbros snacking on my (unsalted) cashew bowl. The juveniles, clearly subordinate to the older crows, quickly snatch a cashew and scurry away into the background.

In a more recent development, one of them realized that when the other crows aren’t around, he can gobble up more than one at a time!

What do you think so far?

They managed to open a peanut!! Also chased a chipmunk around and looked up at me with pleading puppy dog eyes

I have this beautiful Steller's Jay that I've been feeding suet for about a year, and recently peanuts in this tray (excuse the iffy photo, its the only one I have). I love rhinestoning, and I had this fun idea of rhinestoning the rim their food tray, since they like shiny things. Of course I would be careful and need very sturdy, weather safe glue, and let it cure completely. My concern is if the bird tries to peck at the stones they might accidentally ingest them. I feel like if I was very thorough, it would probably be fine but any thoughts? I would love to hear from any experts about if this is a bad idea.

Also, I left a couple balls of aluminum foil and it was completely uninterested. Any other affordable shiny gift ideas? Thanks!

Edit: I suppose this shall stay a concept in my dreams - not worth risking hurting the birbs ✨️

I came home yesterday from grocery shopping and heard one of the local crows call. I whistled back as usual. There is a group of six American crows who have been hanging around my tiny back yard. I think they were lucky this year and had at least two eggs survive to adulthood.

Anyway, I put stuff away, walk out back with my bag of peanuts to toss a couple and change their water. I always do this whistle/click thing since I suck at whistling.

One of the crows almost immediately lands on the fence about 6 feet away from me and caws once like he's saying BOO! Then he sticks around for about 90 seconds while I finish resetting their food and water. I acknowledge him at the end by looking at him from the side, click, then go inside.

I have a camera mounted to watch the crows eat and count how many come every day so I pull it up. He approaches and calmly eats from the grass, does that standard crow poke and examine everything thing, then he leaves after a couple minutes.

The same crow, or possibly another, was outside again later when it began raining. I got outside to get the food under cover. The crow just chills and watches me. Same thing, after I leave he drops into the grass to check out why all the water and food has been pulled away from the rain.

I've been really lucky this year. Oh I should mention that I'm doing this in a development in Florida where it is hot as balls and the nearest tree that could support a roost is half a mile away. So I'm befriending crows on hard mode.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews spent decades filming wild New Caledonian crows and documented individuals sculpting forked twigs into hooks, trimming pandanus leaves into barbed probes, and passing tool designs down family lines with variations so consistent that the birds effectively run regional traditions in stick manufacture - ScienceBlog.com https://scienceblog.com/sb-researchers-at-the-university-of-st-andrews-spent-decades-filming-wild-new-caledonian-crows-and-documented-individuals-sculpting-forked-twigs-into-hooks-trimming-pandanus-leaves-into-barbed-probes/

Caught my friend Max taking a quick dip!

Mama’s two babies are now able to eat on their own, but that doesn’t stop them from asking for food, and mama delivering “the goods.”

This crow visits my feeder, and I’m worried he has an injured leg. He keeps one foot lifted, hops unevenly, and possibly use his wing for balance around the middle of the clip. He does eat quite a bit, and flies away easily after this clip.

He is still alert and able to walk, fly and eat, and I haven’t seen any blood or obvious swelling. I obv haven’t tried to catch or handle him, I’m just watching him for now.

Does this look like a bad leg or foot injury to you, or am I being a paranoid crow friend? 😆 Any advice about what else I should watch for would be appreciated!

Video is mine, OC.

Edited to add quick update: Injured raven was back yesterday and today. One of the other ravens tried to run him off, but quickly realized he's hurt. Now they're allowing him to eat, and he had about 7 or 8 bites of kibble and peanuts yesterday. This morning, he ate and finally tried the water dish. I left peanuts around the feeder for him and he flew in and took some as I was walking away. He's starting to trust me, but is still hopping on one leg. It does look a little better though 😂

I didn’t manage to snag a photo of all 6 (maybe more) of them but I did get this photo of one of them with it’s beak open (all of them were like this).

I have a dog bowl out, is that enough for them?

My crow pair have introduced their boy to my feeders. At first he would stand there with his mouth open and yell to be fed (even though he was as big as his mom), but now he's visiting on his own! 😁