NOV.2020
Have you ever stopped and watched the Crows? Stopped and observed them for at least 10 minutes. If you have never done that, you should. Crows are amazing. They are beautiful. They are happy there. They take care of their own. I think the thing that really got me with the crows that really won my heart over was the way they take care of their fledging. When there’s fledging around, the babies cry all day, and they beg for food for at least two months. Their parents are so patient with them, and they are so good with them. The whole family takes care of them. It is quite amazing. Humans could learn a lot from these crows. Crows are not scary. From what I can see, they do not want to hurt you. I do know that they do not want you near their nest because that is what they set out to do. When it is mating season, they protect that nest, and they give it all they got. If it is their life, they will give it to that nest. They are dedicated monogamist parents. When they have their eggs in the nest, they guard those eggs. If you think about it, we do the same with our children. Parents protect their children. They do not let anybody near them. It is just a lot harder to keep their fledging alive than it is for one of us to keep our children alive. When the crow falls from the nest, it falls right onto the road and gets run over. It makes me cry. I have seen it too many times in the past year. This past year, for some odd reason, she decided to nest in the hedges that were not extremely far from the ground and the raccoon, well, the raccoon got one of the babies and I do not know if the other one survived. I know they say that crows sometimes build Decoy nests so that we do not know where the real one is, and their predators do not know either. I tried to keep the raccoon out of the nest one night. I chased the raccoon all around the parking lot and this went on for about an hour. The raccoon was relentless and would not leave. About an hour into trying to get the raccoon to leave, I asked a homeless guy to just hang out there because there was a nest in the tree and the raccoon was trying to get the fledgling. This man was kind enough to watch the hedges where the nest was, so I ran home and brought him back a sweater and a bottle of water since he agreed.
May 2020
They are fascinating, adaptable, intelligent, and know how to have fun, play games, play in the snow, and even find something to use as a sled to slide down slopes. They care for their siblings, listen to, and learn from their parents. Crows understand what they see and have better sight than humans. They can create friendships that last a lifetime and pair with their mate for life. Crows’ social structure is a lot like us humans. They deserve more respect from us, and we should give it to them. They have families and children, aunts and uncles, sisters, and brothers, and all they are trying to do is survive. They are part of our planet, and we are the ones taking everything away from them by tearing down the trees, removing their nests and making their territories unlivable during the nesting season. This past nesting season, the birds were nesting in trees that had no leaves on them because they were cut so much the leaves took forever to grow. There was a crow that decided to nest in the shrubs. I am guessing because there were no leaves on the trees yet. Nesting in the shrubs did not work out so well. The raccoon took advantage of that situation. The way people hate and do not care about the birds around where I live is very upsetting. This past year, I saw areas where birds had nested being destroyed by people who are supposed to know that you do not harm the nest or destroy the eggs. I know of nests where eggs were destroyed by landscapers as well. I watched a guy take his leaf blower to Heritage Village Hospital, run by Fraser Health, walk around the yard, and blow the leaf blower into the trees and shrubs for like an hour. There was no point to what he was doing, but I knew he had to be upsetting the hummingbirds and songbirds that were nesting as it was nesting season. I was so upset that he would not stop, and I was not the only person on the road watching him who told him he was disrupting the nesting time. On Knight Road, across from my apartment, the dentist’s office had its landscapers come during May to do hedge trimming. They broke the eggs from the Robins’ nest and cut right to the incubating crows’ nest.
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May 2021
Here in the Fraser Valley, we are so lucky. We have mountains, wildlife, birds, rivers, lakes, creeks, and agriculture right in our backyards. People really need to stop and take it all in. They just do not appreciate how lucky we are and how we should try to keep it this way. The land around where I live is going to be developed one day. No more cornfields, no more empty parking lots, and no more looking at the mountains from my balcony. The birds and all the critters around these past few months have been killed and I blame the people who surround me here, so-called neighbors. It is a disgrace to have people like them living in the Fraser valley. Do they think we people are perfect because I can tell you we are 100 times louder than any bird that makes noise in the morning? These birds are songbirds. They make noise and they should be able to live here and do that since they are birds and part of our community. Crows seem to adapt to the changes we make to the environment, but it is still sad to see the trees and land turned into housing and stores. We, as people, are selfish and if these animals had a voice, I would like to see what they had to say about us taking the trees and building housing. I wonder if they feel that we are destroying the earth as we go about living every day. Do they know the earth is heating up? Or is it just another thing for a political reason to control the public? I bet animals know the answers to things we are not sure about our planet. For some reason, they have that kind of connection to our earth. They are very smart and have learned to survive among us selfish beings.
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I remember cleaning my bedroom windows and 3 juvenile crows kept flying by just to watch me as I sprayed the windows with cleaner and then wiped the windows clean. It was very entertaining for them, as it was for me. They are just so endearing in that way. They are curious about what we humans are up to, but I am the same way when I watch them. I am always curious about what is going on and happening when I hear the crows outside. I am getting good at knowing they react to things now what is going on. One of the crows, I am sure it is the mother crow of the group, likes to come and sit on the railing and stare inside at what I am doing, but she sees the pictures that I have on the wall of her and her mate. I do wonder what she is thinking when she looks at the picture. They are smart birds, so I am going to assume that she knows that it is not a live bird.
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June 2021
For someone who knows nothing about crows or birds, hearing him comment about raccoons getting to eat is infuriating, considering the raccoons ate all the baby birds this year as well as destroyed the nests of the crows who tried to nest this past season. I do not think there are more than 2 fledglings that survived this season in this area of Chilliwack, but there should be several crows that fledged because there are a lot of trees around here and we live right on a creek and a bird sanctuary, so it makes no sense that this year should be any different from any other year, but it is, and it is upsetting to me. I believe it has affected the crows in a way I will never truly know, but I know they are very distant in a way I have never seen before as well. They fear me and they have no reason to be. I blame the other humans for this. I get that they are wild animals, but they have never been brave enough to come to me and that is a good thing, but for them to stay high in the trees or far away when they see me is not normal. I do understand that it was nesting season, but this was different. They were not even aggressive this past season. They were just distant in a way I cannot explain. I feel bad for them. I know having nestlings and raising them is something they prepare for all year by getting the prior year’s fledglings ready to help with the new nestlings. I know the crows have renested on the roofs around the area, the ones that the raccoons had eaten. I am happy for them.
