[birding] Crow observations

[lisaaves at peak.org]

I went out to feed the jays and crows this morning at work.  As I walked
out the door I heard what I call the crow "food call," a quick, excited
aw-aw-aw-aw series.  Most of the neighborhood crow family were flying
across the street and out of sight, toward the calling crow.  A straggler
was the only one to spot me tossing out peanuts and bagel bits.  He landed
on a roof and let out an aw! and then a strangled call.  He looked all
around, paying particular attention to the direction the rest of the
family had gone.  He crouched and ducked forward a few times and flicked
his wings and tail, the way crows do when nervous or conflicted.  Then he
swooped down low and glided silently over to me and the daily horde of
peanut-crazed jays.  I think that he had almost given the food call, but
stopped in the middle of it, deciding to eat as much as he could without
sharing.  No one's going to notice, right?  They're all eating over there,
he seemed to have been thinking.

The crow's behavior reminded me of my own at times, if I interpreted it
correctly.  I sometimes give out food that I prepared to friends or
family, but then other times I gobble up a whole box of cookies myself,
without sharing with anyone!  In one instance, I am performing a social
ritual of food provisioning to genetic relatives or unrelated allies,
giving away my own resources, and in the other, I'm packing away a lot of
calories, solely for my own use.  If this is similar to crows, I wonder
how they make decisions whether to just eat the food, or to call over the
whole family.  From lots of crow feeding, I do think they tend to make the
food call when there is ample food to go around, but often refrain from
calling when there is only a little food.  If that's true, the stingy crow
today certainly had a good reason to make the call but evidently, decided
not to.  This has happened on a few other occasions where I had one
silent, jumpy crow getting food alone, although I have no idea if it was
the same one.  No doubt there could have been some other reason crows
might refrain from calling; admittedly, I can't figure out what kinds of
important errands and other business the crows are doing a lot of the
time.  I have also noticed that if two or more crows see me coming out to
feed them, they always give the food call very enthusiastically.  Maybe
not calling in those circumstances might be socially unacceptable, like if
I ate a whole box of cookies in front of my friends without offering to
share, but I really don't know.

I usually think of crows as some of the most altruistic birds, as they are
cooperative breeders, with a mother and father paired for life, and older
siblings helping to raise younger ones.  They usually loudly announce when
they find food so their family can come over and partake.  Of course, like
a lot of human "apparent-altruism," it may temporarily decrease the
fitness of the food-calling crow (not as much food), but it has long-term
benefits for the altruistic individual.  Maybe good food spotters and
those who always share achieve a higher social status?  Also, when they
alert others to the presence of food, they are providing it to others who
share some of the same genes: siblings, offspring, or parents.

Lisa
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com