Post #3969062

2026-07-20 14:05 UTC

Cool crow* thing that happened the other day, and which I just remembered: So the backstory is that sometimes the crows (ravens) like to nick off with our chooks' eggs, and honestly I'm OK with it because I love how cheeky and clever they are, and they don't take many eggs. The other thing you should know is that our chooks are free-range-ish in a fenced off section of the garden, which (for now) is secure around the edge but open to the sky. It's a few weeks until the chooks will start laying but the crows live around our area and I often will say hello to them when we're out walking. And then the other day, we were walking up the street towards our house and I saw a bird gliding high up above and I thought it was a pelican, but then I saw the silhouette of the head and realised it was a hawk! And then! a crow/raven appears from the right, and not only starts harassing the hawk, but also caw-caw-caaawing to its family members, and they are on the job straight away, and within seconds, the hawk has left the vicinity of our chooks and the crows see it off -- we could almost hear them saying, 'And stay out!' I'm thinking that the crows were protecting our chooks -- not because they care about the chooks themselves, so much as they care about the eggs the chooks will start laying soon! Crows. So great :) *apparently the ones around here are ravens, but they seem to not care that I call them crows #crows #ravens #birds #ThingsILove

Replies (4)

@Sheep_Overboard@infosec.exchange 2026-07-20 20:33

@teadrinker@aus.social Birds are so smart. "You’d think the herons would want to build their nests as far away from bald eagles as possible. But you’d be dead wrong. Research on the southwest coast of British Columbia shows that herons are deliberately seeking out nesting pairs of eagles—and building right next to them. “You can understand the predator wanting to be near the prey, but not really the other way around,” Vennesland says. “We were amazed. We call it the mafia-protection racket.” " https://smry.ai/www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/great-blue-herons-bald-eagle-prey-predator/617806?smryFrom=home

Open ##3969061
@nickzoic@aus.social 2026-07-20 14:10

@teadrinker@aus.social We were at a friend's place and all their chooks in the henhouse were going nuts so we looked in and they were all sitting in their nest boxes which seemed odd because they should have been out foraging so we had a closer look and in one of the boxes, sitting on a couple of eggs and trying to avoid eye contact, was a large and sleek Australian Raven.

Open ##4267789
@CaringKinderSociety@aus.social 2026-07-20 19:52

@teadrinker@aus.social Love this Bec! 👏❤️

Open ##4267791
@feather1952@aus.social 2026-07-20 21:25

@teadrinker@aus.social That’s so cool - I love it.

Open ##4267793