Crows

Coco

I had a Black Crow as a pet for 20 years (Coco was 27 when she died after having a stroke) and I absolutely love these endearing and highly intelligent birds.

Something we can all learn from animals - when I used to take food out to feed her (she ate almost anything under the sun, with a staple diet of minced meat), she would eat her fill, but carry on taking food from me after she was satisfied and dig holes and hide it, to be searched for and dug up later when she was hungry again.

She absolutely loved gardening with me, following in my tracks and plucking out seedlings as fast as I could plant them, leaving a trail behind her, to be discovered by me as I returned to water them all. Her favourite was finding bugs as I dug up the garden, especially cutworms.

She had built up quite a vocabulary and to friends' and visitors' delight, they would be greeted at the front gate with a very convincing Queens English "Hello. Come in" followed by bellowing laughter. She provided hours of entertainment and it was a great loss for me when she died.

The Cape Crow or Black Crow (Corvus capensis) is slightly larger (48-50 cm in length) than the Carrion Crow and is completely black with a slight gloss of purple in the feathers. It has proportionately longer legs, wings and tail too and has a much longer, slimmer bill that seems to be designed for probing into the ground for invertebrates. The head feathers have a coppery-purple gloss and the throat feathers are quite long and fluffed out in some calls and displays.

A group of crows is called a "murder," though this term usually appears in poetry or similar literature rather than ordinary usage.


"Coco" my Black Crow - She used to take this stance and make a ka-ka-ka sound, like the horn of a car. It must be a natural sound of theirs, because I've heard crows in the wild doing the same thing.


Cape Crow (Black Crow)


Common Ravens on the grounds of the Tower of London


Crow in flight


Hooded Crow


Daurian Jackdaws