Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Crow Excavation


This sequence began with two Crows alternating acting sentinel, with attempting to unearth and eat something frozen in the snow at the base of the Goodie Stump. Then one of the Crows spied me and decided to abandon the effort but this Crow stayed a little longer.

What freshly struck me about this activity, is that they didn't use their feet in any excavating kind of way. They stoood on them, their feet, or they may have stood on "it", the frozen food, but there was no, scratching, digging, or other use of toes, toenails, or feet to aid the beak in the effort that I could see. Nor the body movements that would have entailed.


Why don't Crows use their feet like that?

Many other birds do--various species of sparrow, Tohee, chickens, to name just a few, but some birds like Crows don't.


Why?


Donegal Browne

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