Raven, Crows and Raptor
Posted: Mar 24 10:07 am
Hey everyone, just wanted to share an interesting observation I made and see if anyone has any insight.
Yesterday afternoon as I was walking home from work, I noticed a single raven flying around in circles "kraa"-ing and making a commotion, I figured it was upset about something in a particular tree. A couple of crows showed up, I expected them to chase off the raven (from what I've seen crows can't abide ravens) but the raven kept returning to the tree and the crows seemed pretty half-hearted about chasing it off. I wish I would have been able to get a recording, but it almost seemed like the raven's calls were matching the tone of the crows, higher-pitched than I'm used to hearing (of course the resonance of the raven's calls couldn't be hidden lol)
Sure enough, after a few more times circling the tree, a Red-tailed Hawk took off with the raven in pursuit. The crows didn't take part in chasing it off, they were happy to let both of them go on their way.
This whole interaction took place over only a couple minutes, if I would have known how it would have transpired I would have tried to get a video from my phone.
My question is, does anyone know if ravens and crows are known to put aside their differences when raptors are around, and was the raven possibly trying to attract or recruit the crows as backup against the hawk? Thanks for reading!
Yesterday afternoon as I was walking home from work, I noticed a single raven flying around in circles "kraa"-ing and making a commotion, I figured it was upset about something in a particular tree. A couple of crows showed up, I expected them to chase off the raven (from what I've seen crows can't abide ravens) but the raven kept returning to the tree and the crows seemed pretty half-hearted about chasing it off. I wish I would have been able to get a recording, but it almost seemed like the raven's calls were matching the tone of the crows, higher-pitched than I'm used to hearing (of course the resonance of the raven's calls couldn't be hidden lol)
Sure enough, after a few more times circling the tree, a Red-tailed Hawk took off with the raven in pursuit. The crows didn't take part in chasing it off, they were happy to let both of them go on their way.
This whole interaction took place over only a couple minutes, if I would have known how it would have transpired I would have tried to get a video from my phone.
My question is, does anyone know if ravens and crows are known to put aside their differences when raptors are around, and was the raven possibly trying to attract or recruit the crows as backup against the hawk? Thanks for reading!