Amazing Jackdaw experience

Once had a Peregrine stoop on a very small RC glider I made. Seen them hunting many times but that was a bit surreal.

Didn’t make contact but really did leave it till the very last few yards before calling of the attack.

the Hooded Crows goading and provoking the cats just really funny.

The hooded crows were probably scottish – we don’t have that sort of hoodie riff-raff down south, so understandably they’re always up for provoking a street brawl and having a ruck. Disgraceful 😐

ian martin – Member

I’ve seen a lot of wildlife over the years. The one encounter that stands out is on a night ride I catch up with a fox. He’s walking the same way as me and I shout out a warning. The fox just stops and turns to face me. I stop and shine my light on my self so the fox sees what I am. I thought the fox would just take off but it started walking towards me. Now the thought of rabies enters my head and I shit it. I put my bike between us and manage to get past the fox. I jump on and pedal like mad and the fox trotts behind me for a while then loses interest and goes his own way.

My god, he’s alive! 😀

Saw the biggest rat in my life run across the road to Ivelet from Hawes.
Seriously, you could have fed a family of five for a week.

Coincidentally I saw a bird of prey and either a crow or a raven having a mid air scrap/flap at each other yesterday just past Eddleston-looked to me like the crow was getting the better of the much larger wing spanned bird of prey.I assumed they were fighting over food.
Years ago a magpie would sit on our window sill and tap on the window with it’s beak.One warm day with the windows open he just flew in and stood there completely unphased, mimicing human noises-it was like it was talking.It made a regular thing of this till one day my mum found it pecking away at cooked chicken in the kitchen.It was barred after that.

Dances are that would have been a buzzard

Christ I hate this ifad. It really is the devils own work.

Your magpie Nick, was almost certainly raised by a human before being released/getting lost into the wild. Since the general consensus is that human raised magpies, crows, etc, lack the survival skills to exist unaided in the wild, it is nice hear of an example to suggest otherwise. I had a completely tame magpie (for 18 years) who was an excellent mimic of not only me, but also car alarms. IME adult wild magpies are impossible to tame properly – hand reared they become incredibly tame.

I’ve also seen a pair of crows high up in the sky constantly harassing a bird of prey as it was flying along (don’t think there was any food involved but corvidae don’t like birds of prey as the provide competition) The bird of prey (don’t know what species) just regularly tilted as it flew to show the crows that it was fully armed, ie, with talons, that made them keep their distance.

@Ernie

Agreed, all the Corvus family are very bright. When I was a kid, one of my friends had a pet Jackdaw. It didn’t mimic much, but would caw back to you if you said his name, play fetch with a small ball, play dead, roll over, and generally act more dog than bird! Also followed us most places, but never more than about 1/2 a mile from its home.

I always wanted a Jackdaw since as the most gregarious of the family I have always assumed they would make the best pets. Although magpies are excellent in that respect – my hand reared one absolutely adored me !

IME Jays are not good with humans as they are instinctively too shy and solitary. I’ve had a hand reared Jay and as an adult it really wasn’t tame at all. Although I guess it probably also varies considerably between individuals – I have two crows at the moment, one is 23 years old this year, and they couldn’t be more different character wise.

That cat fight video is amazing, the Hooded Crows goading and provoking the cats just really funny.

I’m more impressed that the cats somehow managed to choreograph the whole fight to dramatic music.