[braggerxyz]

I live next to a farm in a rural town. We have lots of cats around which are necessary to keep the rodents in check. Our cats love to play their prey to death in our yard (yeah nature is cruel). Some of the local crows know how to get the dead mice from the cats. One or two crows distract the cat, the cat likes to chase the crows for the thrill of the hunt, and then one crow swoops in and steals the cats prey. The cats are always bamboozled when this happens and we watch and laugh. Really smart these feathered freaks :D

I leave shelled peanuts and other bird feed out in the winter, and is fascinating to watch the crows and magpies to crack them open, feed on some of them, then grab two shelled peanuts and fly off with them. They already recognize me coming out in the winter mornings with the bird feed and peanut bags. They wait patiently in the surrounding trees until I'm in the house again. They even see me through the windows watching them and only come down to feed once I am out of sight for them. Truly remarkable.

We also have some pairs of red kites in our area which circle over our fields for prey. The crows don't like them and will try to chase them away, mostly in packs of two to three crows. They are 99% successful in chasing the red kites away because they are more agile in the air and can do more complex flight manouvers. But once one of the crows got to close to the claws of the kite and was killed instantly and dropped down dead. What happened then was even more fascinating. The whole flock of crows gathered around their dead companion and maybe "mourned"? I don't know how to else explain it.

Next winter I will try to befriend them even more, they are so fascinating!

[grousewood]

I've heard the crow "funeral" is an information gathering strategy. Figuring out what killed it, what risks are in the area, how to mitigate it happening again.

Very clever!

[jihadjihad]

The irony of a group of crows being called a murder while they are gathered for a funeral, going over their own post mortem of a fallen comrade.

[billynomates]

Anecdata: I see this in the park next to my house. Two crows will repeatedly chase and tail-pull an Egyptian goose that has no food and nothing they could want. Hard to read it as anything other than play, which lines up with documented corvid tail-pulling of eagles, cats, etc.

[the-grump]

Thank you for sharing these wonderful stories!