Jerry In Maine
Senior Heliman
Location: "Downeast" Maine
| Those turkeys in the pic above would come up to me when they saw me outside and beg for corn that I kept in the garage. It would really tick off the Tom because he was trying to get the ladies interested in mating - but seems they were always more interested in eating.
The wife and I are bird fanatics - especially for crows. Here's a neat video about a crow that that I found very interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JiJzqXxgxo
Search YouTube for "crow" and you'll find some other neat ones.
Last fall here I noticed a crow off by itself in the woods. A closer look showed it was injured and could not fly. Net thing was that every evening it's family would come and "visit" with it for maybe an hour or so, then they'd leave for the night. I finally caught it and took it to a wildlife rehab clinic not far from here.
When you see a group of crows you usually see Mom, Pop and at least all members of the last two generations. The second generation stays to learn parenting skills and help with the new chicks, then they fly off to claim their own territory and raise their own kids. People who tag them for study have found that at least once a year they travel to visit Mom and Dad for no other apparent reason than to re-establish family ties.
Something how "dumb" animals strive to take care of their families and some do all they can to keep close to their relatives. Many humans could take a lesson from them.
We have a couple groups here in the woods where I live. The other day I was driving up the hill to the house. I saw a crow on the telephone wire look at me, then he looked down and gave 3 loud "caw, caw" sounds. Then I saw a group of maybe 6 fly off. When I got to the top of the hill I saw what was going on...they were digging onto a trash bag - and the crow up on the wire served as the lookout. When he saw someone coming up the hill he'd give the warning.
And the last two pics - promise...here's a little nuthatch I made friends with after patching him up from flying into a window,
and another - more furry - visitor we had last summer:
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Let me know if anyone wants a scan of the CHP logo to make decals with and I'll email it to you. I used a testors decal kit and laser printer to make them from the scan and they turned out great.
I hope to see how you do on the open thread soon
