The best thing today

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 3:22 am

That is a very cool story. I wonder if the crow had been somebody's pet?

I don't mind crows; I'm sure if I were a corn farmer I would feel differently, but as a city dweller I can appreciate them and the important role they play as scavengers (i.e. cleaning up our litter

).

Vanessa · Post by **Vanessa** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 8:34 am

That's a lovely story. I don't mind crows either even though they remind me of the film, The Birds!!! As long as they don't start lining up on telephone wires....................

Madeleine · Post by **Madeleine** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 9:30 am

That's a lovely story Brian, but it was nice that he recognised his own kind and decided to join them. I don't mind them but they can be very noisy especially first thing in the morning!

Blackbirds have a lovely song, there was one that used to sit in a nearby tree and sing for hours, I used to give him a round of applause! Sadly one of them fell victim to a local cat a few years ago, but there seem to be plenty of them. I have a feeling that blackbirds are part of the crow family.

Crows and magpies are very clever; I love watching the local magpies watch where the squirrel buries a peanut, then when he's gone, they go and dig it up.

LH - what's a grackle?

fljustice · Post by **fljustice** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 2:11 pm

Lovely story, Brian! Our first year in this house, we had a nest of cardinals in a low tree in our front yard. When the babies were learning to fly, the parents would swoop at and verbally threaten anyone who got close. I watched from the porch as a young one dropped onto a bush and seemed in distress, but the parents wouldn't let me close. It eventually gained enough strength to fly back into the tree.

We also have green parrots that visit our yard regularly and chatter at us. Evidently, several years ago a shipment escaped from JFK and made their homes in the lighting fixtures around the Brooklyn College athletic field. They've multiplied and invaded Prospect Park (we're between the two.) Winter tends to thin them out, but there are always some that survive.

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 2:14 pm

[quote=""Madeleine""] I love watching the local magpies watch where the squirrel buries a peanut, then when he's gone, they go and dig it up.

[/quote] That's great -- sounds like something straight out of a cartoon!

[quote=""fljustice""]They've multiplied and invaded Prospect Park (we're between the two.) Winter tends to thin them out, but there are always some that survive.[/quote] How interesting -- I'm surprised that parrots could survive a NY winter at all. I guess they're "tough old birds."

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 3:04 pm

Madeleine, a grackle is type of blackbird with irridescent feathers of the purple/blue persuasion. It has a rather grating call. There are three variations: the common grackle,the great-tailed grackle and the boat-tailed grackle. We have the common grackle here.

Sweet story, Brian.

Ludmilla · Post by **Ludmilla** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 3:14 pm

That's a great story about the crow. They are very smart. I think I read somewhere that they can count higher than a lot of other animals. Can't remember what number scientists decided they could count up to. In our yard, they are very protective of their territory. The hawks actually fare rather poorly against them.

Re nests, the little brown wrens frequently build nests around us. We've found them on our porch, in our garage and my husband's barn. One year, I even found a wren nest in one of my old garden shoes in the garage. I keep a number of blue bird nesting boxes on our property. They get used every year by the blue birds and other smaller birds.

Madeleine · Post by **Madeleine** » Wed May 18th, 2011, 3:15 pm

Thanks for the info about the grackle, just looked at a pic and realised I've seen them when I've been on hols in Florida (back in the 90s), I remember thinking that their blue feathers made them look very striking. They sound like our starlings, which are about the same size as a blackbird, with multi-coloured (mainly purple and green) iridescent feathers, and which also tend to live in large groups, and make a lot of noise! They also fly in very large flocks, and make incredible formations and patterns when they're swooping about.

We've got an influx of green parakeets here too; probably a few escapees but they're now quite common, especially on Hampstead Heath, and they're now beginning to infiltrate the local parks, although I've only seen one in my park so far (it seemed very tame and let me walk right up to it as it sat in a tree), there's a flock of about 25 regularly spotted in one of the other parks. They're a very bright green, and very vocal!

Michy · Post by **Michy** » Thu May 19th, 2011, 11:37 pm

[quote=""Vanessa""]You will have to give updates!

[/quote] Their eyes have been open for a couple of days, now. And today they seem to be more alert; that is, they are sitting up rather than lying down. (The nest is just high enough that if they are sitting up I can see their heads, but if they're lying down I can't see them).

Since they've hatched I've noticed that mama is absent more than she's around. I guess she has to spend a lot of time, now, foraging for food. The male is almost never around. What a deadbeat dad!

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Fri May 20th, 2011, 1:41 am

Clearly we need a bird thread.

Yesterday morning there was a wonderful little bird song in the tree in front of our house. Due to the sunlight I could only get a glimpse of the bird's underside which appeared to be yellow or orange. Couldn't see anything else. Went searching online and found a site that had audio files of bird calls. Couldn't identify it.

This evening I heard the same bird song in the back yard and followed the song to find the same bird almost at the top of a tree about fifteen feet from me. I whistled a little and I think we had a conversation. I hope I didn't offend him. Since the sun had already set I could see that he seems to be a Baltimore Oriole. Funny, the bird site didn't have a song as nice as his for that type of bird. I hope he sticks around. I quite like his singing.