@ct_bergstrom Carl, thank you so much for this thread. I have an old and very dear friend who is a HUGE fan of crows. She even has one tattooed on her calf. She's currently in the hospital fighting for her life. And I sit here 3000 miles away feeling helpless. Your thread lifted my spirits during a rough holiday season. Thank you! ❤️

@ct_bergstrom Befriending crows, eh?

@ct_bergstrom Thank you for such an informative thread. I've always enjoyed our neighborhood crows. A group of them regularly spend time in our back garden (commonly 5-6). Never realized we could try to befriend them. Thanks for the advice.

@ct_bergstrom I share your regard for and love of crows. Have had some very special interactions with them which have taught me much about their 'crowmanity'. Would add one more thing. They exist with other birds. Have often noted how when garden birds are threatened by arrival of a predator, one crow calls the others and in comes the support. They are an important part of a bird community

@ct_bergstrom I have two different groups who come by for peanuts. There were a few initial squabbles but now they seem to have a time sharing arrangement.Original crow is still my fave, so smart and shiny!

@ct_bergstrom such an informative thread thank you. Shared with wife and daughter. We’ve taken up birding the last year or so. Going to have to try and make friends with our neighborhood crows. In the spring we hand 6-8 crows regularly they disappeared for a while and just a couple around now. These pictures taken when they were in a tree in our backyard.

@ct_bergstrom It’s gonna be one of my New Year’s resolutions. Thanks for the encouragement! Is dog kibble too dry for them? I always have some while I’m walking my dogs.

@ct_bergstrom To Live Where Ravens Call

Often I will hear them overhead.
I may be in the garden,
Sitting on the stoop,
Or even indoors.

Driving, I may see a pair
Flying over a farmer mowing his fields,
Black feathers glinting as they tilt in the sun.

Always their presence causes me to stop.
To be still for a moment.

This has been going on so long
It’s impossible to say
When it became essential
To live where ravens call.

@ct_bergstrom We live near the southern roost and feed our crows regularly.

We have an old arbor in the back yard and perch a dog dish up there full of puppy chow, peanuts, and other delicious treats, especially during breeding season. They're still skittish about us being in the yard when they are, but they will sit on the arbor & wait for us to come in the kitchen. They make deliberate eye contact before they fly off to a nearby tree. And we do get occasional gifts.

@ct_bergstrom A few years ago I was between jobs and used the down time to do garden projects. I’d often pick up lunch from a fast food chain and eat outside. I’d give my extra fries to the crows. I wouldn’t call them friends exactly but they knew me. Then one day I was working and I saw a crow flit by and something dropped into the grass beside me. It was a shrimp. A cooked shrimp with tail on, grill lines, and sweet and sour sauce. My crow friends had air dropped me a shrimp.

@ct_bergstrom I was making progress befriending the crows in my neighborhood but they won't come to my yard anymore. My guess is it's because of the aggressive blue Jays, fox, and random cat that also spend a lot of time here. I think there's enough food around they didn't want to deal with the drama and I understand but I'm kinda sad about it.

@ct_bergstrom no crows here. Our local corvids are ravens (Braidwood, near Canberra). We don’t deliberately feed them, but cohabit nonetheless. They’re regularly found in our kitchen and chook pen. I took this blurry pic on the wing one time. (Edited cos they’re just ravens, not ‘little’).

@ct_bergstrom inspired by this thread, literally the *only* thing i asked for for christmas was a large (25 pound) bag of unsalted peanuts.

practicing my potential calls: either “hello crows” (i like the internal rhyme) or 「カラス来い！」(sounds like « karasu koi », “come, crows!” in Japanese).

i am about to have so many friends

@ct_bergstrom I loved this thread, and I'm going to do this after the new year. Cool birds.

@ct_bergstrom my husband and I befriended an injured Common Raven in the Duluth Zoo many years ago. We began playing a sort of "pass the stick" game with it through the bars of its cage. It clearly came to recognize us and would bring a stick to the bars of the cage whenever we saw it. I don't know how many zoo visitors it had trained in this way, but we were thrilled to be able to share some fun with it whenever we saw it.

@ct_bergstrom

Carl, this is a wonderful thread - thank you so much for taking the time to assemble it and share it with us. We are going to try to befriend our neighborhood crows - and will be sure to not use them for evil. 🙂

@ct_bergstrom this is great! Thank you. My dad’s middle name was Crow, so I gave my daughter that middle name, too. She is Lily Crow & she has a crow tattooed on her arm. We also used to get hundreds of crows flying around our neighborhood. I would watch them closely but never tried to befriend them or feed them. But I think I will. I’ve always related well to animals & birds.

@ct_bergstrom re: safe crow snacks for anyone reading, a great option is to find your local speciality parrot shop and look at their offerings for large parrots. Crows aren’t hookbills of course, but the kinds of things that are tasty and safe for large, highly intelligent tool-using birds tend to be similar. You can buy a big bag of raw unsalted nuts, seeds, bits of dried fruits and veggies, and little pressed nugget type bits in bulk to amaze and amuse any bird inexpensively!

@ct_bergstrom Wonderful thread, thank you. I'm hoping to make friends with the crows that nest in the trees next to my house. I could hear their fledglings this year but never saw them. It would be such a treat to see those grumpy faces.

@ct_bergstrom I’m in!!

@ct_bergstrom Great thread. We had magpies, crows and ravens all over the place around the ranch where I grew up. And, yeah, I would talk to them and watch them while they watched me. Fascinating birds, but they just said no to letting a certain little girl catch them so they could be her pets.

@ct_bergstrom

Thanks for sharing your experience! I have been observing magpies for many years and it is wonderful to learn how clever and creative personalieties these birds can be.

@ct_bergstrom I used to feed crows a lot but moved where I don't feel able to do so. When a Native American man I knew called Little Crow died I was unable to go to Minnesota for his memorial.

@ct_bergstrom My 2023 goal!

@ct_bergstrom Not really friends, they know I don't harm them. Sometimes/ often they play with me while with pocket cam on my way. Damn intelligent cute mess on two feet! 😂 😂 Thank you so much for this photo!!

@ct_bergstrom Ok now I’m inspired to introduce myself to the 4 crows that live near me. I’ve been watching them chase off the incredibly fat & resourceful squirrels that pilfer from the bird feeder. They are the only ones who can intimidate the squirrels, & they’re so well-organized!

@ct_bergstrom Lovely thread. We had a pair of magpies nesting in our urban back yard once. If it happens again I will try peanuts.

@ct_bergstrom Everything you've said here is why I've been making an effort to become known to the local crows as The Human With Almonds. Never a whole lot at any given time, but enough for everyone in the flock to get a piece of one. They're beautiful, smart birds and watching their antics has gotten me through so many rough days.

@ct_bergstrom For some years now I am wondering what‘s going on in late autumn and spring. There are always extremely large gatherings (guess some hundreds of crows) on very high rooftops. They sit in groups with some birds flying around. What are they doing? Is it kind of a survey thing? Some kind of conference?

@ct_bergstrom so cute! Thank you for this explanation, I will absolutely try it at home!