<p>Twenty years ago: I’m in the kitchen, clearing up after mealtime, and wishing there was something useful I could do with all the meaty scraps. I didn’t want them in the compost, where they would attract animals, and the garbage sack would be ripped open by the crows when I set it out on garbage day. Then I had a thought: I could give the scraps directly to the crows.</p>
<p>Next morning, I marched forth bearing a bowl filled with bits of fat and gristle, yesterday’s stale cat food, and some bread past its expiry date. I emptied the bowl onto the ground at the edge of the garden and retreated indoors to watch what happened. I didn’t have to wait long. The crows carried off my offering within minutes, leaving no mess behind.</p>
<p>Hubby felt that putting food on the ground was not right, and so he built a bird table. The crows adapted immediately. In the morning they now waited in the trees around the house for me to deliver their breakfast, and so they naturally followed me to the new eating place. In fact, they seemed to recognize me even when it wasn’t feeding time. Before I started feeding them they used to fly away when I entered the garden, but now they were comfortable with my presence while I was doing yard-work.</p>
<p>I began watching the crows as much as they were watching me. When they cleaned off the bird table, they didn’t actually eat much. They stuffed their beaks with as much as they could carry, flew off and hid the food under a tussock of grass or some leaves, and flew back to repeat the operation. Throughout the day, individual crows would return to their secret caches and have a snack. They didn’t always clean out their larder. I started putting corn on the bird table, and the next year I found corn plants coming up in several flowerbeds.</p>
<p>Listening to the crows, I began realized that my crows had a slightly different tone to their calls than other groups of crows in the area. I also noticed that they had distinct calls for “breakfast is served”, “defend the territory against other crows”, and “predator alert”. The latter call over-rode any territorial limits, and so a hawk could be mobbed by crows from far and wide.</p>
<p>Now I was so interested in the crows, I read up on them. I found ‘The American Crow and the Common Raven’ by Lawrence Kilham to be an excellent resource. I learned that my group of crows consisted of a dominant breeding pair and a number of subordinate, un-mated female crows that were likely to be daughters of the breeding pair. Subordinates assist with raising the breeding pair’s offspring every year. If a dominant crow behaves aggressively towards a subordinate, the subordinate will roll over onto its side in total submission.</p>
<p>The years passed, hubby and I moved house, and I said goodbye to my crows. Where I live now, a recycling Green Bin now takes most of my table scraps, but I still put some on the bird table and get pleasure from seeing crows drop by for breakfast.</p>
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