They are territorial, so you can sometimes recognize them based on location and number when there’s nothing else distinguishable about them. There used to be two of them that would claim my front yard as their territory and they’d claim first access to any food that was put out and drive off competitors. They increased in number though and I could tell they had some kids because they did the whole squawking fledgling act where they scream to be fed constantly. So now there are more members of the family that dominate the area.

Different sets will follow me around in different parts of the neighborhood, again reflecting the territorial aspect. There’s one couple a few blocks from my house that is highly distinguishable because one of the birds has a wonky wing. My neighbor named that was Twitch and its mate is Shogun.

Here’s a post featuring them and one of their fledglings: https://lemmy.ml/post/17566746

There’s a crow at my work who hides his treats in a particular patch of grass and so I call him Stash. I’ve seen him drive off other crows who get near his stashes.

I carry cat treats with me since you can carry so many in a small pouch in a pocket. They supposedly like unsalted peanuts in the shell too, but you can’t carry as many on a walk. They still follow me when I run out of treats, so I make sure I carry a lot. They’ve also come up on my porch and eaten wet meaty cat food.

I work at a college campus. Several crows will follow me when I’m walking around since they know I’m a source of snacks. This one was following me from building to building while I was putting up flyers.

Most of the calls in my neighborhood tend to be shorter bursts—territorial or assembly calls. The greater frequency calls tend to be reserved for when a hawk or owl is around and needs to be mobbed once backup arrives. The fact that the similar sounding duck quacking is interspersed seems to indicate imitation to me.

Still pretty common today.

Yeah, I keep whatever non-perishable objects they bring me. So far it’s just the three stones.

I got a few stones from them in the bird bath in my front yard, which was awesome—A red quartz, a white quartz, and a random piece of concrete. Today they left fries in the bird bath, so, you know, thought that counts… Or they were just softening their food up and something interrupted the meal.

US patents expire after 20 years.

I recently read In the Company of Crows and Ravens and the authors mentioned that crows have come to specifically recognize the McDonald’s logo on a bag as a likelier source of food than a plain bag.

I recently read In the Company of Crows and Ravens and it suggested that crow language may be very specific to crow families and neighbors, kind of like a regional dialect but for many very small regions, so it might difficult to interpret a universal language that understands the more specific aspects of every individual crow cant. We might only get the most basic and common calls.

I’m guessing it would be more like, *Hey, Bob, watch this!"

!crows@lemmy.ml is a more active alternative for corvid content.

Humboldt is the neighborhood, but I rarely hear anyone use the term. It’s just a part of north Portland or NoPo when we talk about it.

They tend to be up in tall trees around my neighborhood, so the nests are hard to spot. But you can guess where they are because I’ve seen crows get territorial with each other when one flies up to the part of the tree where the other is.

I started out getting their attention by making noises. Once I knew they were aware of me, I tossed the food into a flat area where they could easily collect it all. Once they realize you’re good for food, it won’t take much effort to get their attention. They start looking for you and will fly up when you come outside. I’ve had them swoop very close to me to get my attention if I hadn’t noticed them yet when I’m outside. They’ll also caw to let each other know that you’re there, so more will fly up. Sometimes there’s one that will stay in a tree overhead as a watch if there are cats or other possible dangers in the area.

They hang out around the outside of your house, wait for you to come out, squawk to get your attention, follow you around the neighborhood. If you don’t remember to have treats on you, you feel guilty.

If you enjoy it, it can feel like you’re a druid communing with animals, but if you decide you don’t like it, it could feel like you’re in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Crows have good memories and they tell their offspring about people they like and don’t like. They may just stalk you and wonder why you stopped feeding them.

It could also become a burden depending on your income level and how often you feed them and how big the local murder is. It’s not expensive, but I’d just recommend anyone who wants to get into it be prepared for the cost.

The best way to befriend them is to feed them. It does become a thing though, so be sure you’re ready for a new hobby.

Some people recommend feeding them at the same time of day so they know when to expect you. I have crows around my neighborhood and at work, so I feed them whenever I’m leaving in the morning, at work, or come back home, or also going on walks at home or work…

Crows like peanuts in the shell. They’ll also eat cat food and treats. You just want to make sure not to feed them anything salty, so no salted peanuts. They will eat other bird meat. I feed cats on my porch and I’ve had crows come up on the porch and snatch some wet chicken bits from the dish.

You can also put out a bird bath for them, depending on whether you’re in an area with standing water issues like mosquitos.

I was looking through some old vinyl in a store yesterday and found an album from the 50s or 60s called Songs Everybody Knows and I didn’t recognize a single song on the list.

I tried, but I just can’t go back and play Oblivion after playing Skyrim with all the quality of life mods. I’m waiting on the Skyblivion release to revisit it.