Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

My Friends, the Crows

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT CROWS
Crows do have one endearing characteristic that is apparently not shared by other birds. They will get to know people as individuals. While you can get chickadees to eat out of your hand, any old hand will do, and I suspect that the chickadees do not know you as an individual. Crows will! If you toss them peanuts (I recommend unsalted, in the shell) on a regular basis, they will wait and watch for you. Not just any person, but you. If you do this often enough, they will follow you down the street to get more.

My local crows are too shy to come in for peanuts if I’m outside. I’ve put some roasted (unsalted) in-the-shell peanuts out on my deck rail this morning, though, and 3 or 4 crows have been enjoying them for the past half hour or so.

It’s interesting to see how the different crows approach the whole peanut thing. They all seem to prefer grabbing some peanuts and flying off to a “safer” place to eat them. Some of the crows — the older and smarter ones, I presume — will swallow a couple peanuts down into their craw and carry a third peanut in their beak as they fly off, thus maximizing their peanut grab. Other crows haven’t quite figured out this technique. They’ll try to pick up a couple peanuts in an open beak and fly with them like that. I’m sure these crows are dropping a lot of peanuts that way. (More for the squirrels on the ground, I guess.)

The crows look really healthy now — beautiful glossy black feathers, so black they look dark blue, big and strong-looking. For a couple of years, we hardly saw any of them — apparently a lot of crows died from West Nile Virus. They’re making a rebound, though, it seems. Hurray! I love crows.

I’m conflicted about trying to get them to catch peanuts that I might toss to them. On the one hand, it would be really neat! On the other hand, I’m concerned the crows might hang around people who don’t like crows and they could be hurt by these evil people. (Although the writer of this crow FAQ on the Cornell site says the crows know the difference between one person and another. So… maybe that wouldn’t really be a worry.)

Anyway. Buy some unsalted peanuts and feed some crows. And, if you’ve never been to the Cornell bird site, you really should check it out. It’s wonderful.