Henry Ward Beecher wrote, "If men wore feathers, very few of them would be clever enough to be crows."
The crow is a remarkable bird, and some even say that it is our smartest bird. Although man has always considered the crow as its enemy and killed them indiscriminately, the crow has thrived on man's activities.
Today, we have more crows than when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
The crow is not liked by most farmers because of its destructive habit of pulling up seed corn after sprouting; however, the crow actually helps the farmer by eating large numbers of June bugs, grasshoppers, grubs, weevils and other troublesome insects. It is estimated that during one growing season crows will devour 19 bushels of insects on an average farm. In fact, a crow will eat almost anything, including carrion.
If the crow limited its eating habits to the above mentioned items and ceased raiding other birds’ nests to either eat the eggs or steal the young, this bird would not be despised as much by the general public.
If you happened to be in the woods at sunrise, the crow will often be one of the first birds heard as the forest wakes up; however, the crow’s caw can also be heard in the cities since the bird is just as much at home in our cities as in our mountains.
Crows do not have many enemies other than man and the great-horned owl, which is its chief predator. If a band of crows find an owl trying to sleep away the daylight hours, they will attack the bird with such vigor the owl will be forced from its perch to make a hasty get away. The crows will chase and harass the poor owl for hours on end. These
"crow/owl" incidents rarely end in death for either, but on rare occasions, a crow that gets too close to the owl's sharp talons will end
up as a meal.
The score can be evened at night when an owl has been known to take an adult crow off its roost and steal the young birds from the nest.
A crow's beak, which is a very impressive weapon, is used as a hammer, probe, hook and dagger. The bill is designed (with a system of hinges and levers) so that the crow is able to widely open its beak, allowing the bird to swallow large items with ease.
The crow's taxonomic name is Corvus brachyrynchos, which means "short-beaked Corvid." The crow belongs to the same family as the raven, jay, magpie and Clark's nutcracker.
Crows are survivors. Almost everyone has seen a crow eating from a road-killed animal. The crow's timing is such that it leaves the dead carcass just before a vehicle arrives and flies overhead in a circle until the car passes and then lands again on the dead animal. Even on our interstate highways the crow is agile enough to avoid being struck by vehicles traveling at speeds of 65 (or faster) miles per hour.
The following are a few of the many sayings that are associated with the crow: "as the crow flies" means the shortest distance between two places; "to eat crow" is to be forced to do something extremely distasteful and a "crow's nest" is a platform on the main mast of sailing ships, where a person can get a good view.
The crow's nest is a large nest, sometimes two-feet wide, built in the crotch of a tree as high as 70 feet off the ground. The nest is built of twigs, sticks, bark and vines and softly lined with mosses, grasses, furs, feathers, etc.. The female will lay four to six eggs. After incubation begins, which is after the last egg is laid, the young hatch in 18 days and leave the nest at five weeks of age. The young crows will remain with the parent birds until the following spring.
Our common crow, which is probably one of the best known birds in America, is both loved and hated.
James Russell Lowell wrote this about the crow, "Yet there are few things more melodious than his caw on a clear morning as it drops to you filtered through five hundred fathoms of crisp, blue air."