The #15 I and the Bird carnival has the theme Birds on Birds. Our entry is Hung Bun Tang’s “Tang’s nesting crows 1: Whose eggs are these?” Click on the link and enjoy.

January 7th 2006 was 15 days since I first saw the three eggs in the nest. When I went out to buy groceries at around noon, I went up to my usual place to take a look at the crows’ nest. The first chick had hatched! I was excited and was wondering when the next two eggs would hatch.

I returned home at 2 pm. Quickly I took out my camera and went straight to the next block. From afar, I saw the two House Crows (Corvus splendens) hopping among the branches of their nesting tree. This looked strange. As I got closer, I was shocked to see that the whole nest had disappeared. Could it be an attack by the Asian Koels (Eudynamys scolopacea)? From the 4th level of the block, I could not see any traces or remnants of the nest. The pair of crows was calling desperately from the top of a nearby lamp-post. I decided to go down to the ground level to inspect the area beneath the tree. Yes, there was the chick, dead, of course, and a cracked egg. I didn’t see any trace of the third egg.

I started to reason. It couldn’t be the work of the koels. They couldn’t possibly remove the whole nest. It must be people. As I looked up to the nest site, a small girl and her maid were looking out of their window on the second level, talking to each other and pointing to where the nest was. They told me it was two workers and their boss who removed the nest with a long stick with a knife attached at its end. The whole nest fell to the ground and the workers took the nest away. The maid and the small girl were also sad about this.

Well, crows are pests. What can I say?

In 1995 when we were staying in Yishun, the Town Council sent a team of workers to our estate to conduct a massive felling of rows of lovely trees, some reaching 20 m in height. The whole operation lasted one week. The Town Council explained that these trees attracted many birds (Barn Swallows, Hirundo rustica) to perch in. I moved house the next year.

Text and images by Hung Bun Tang

I have given an earlier account of the series of attacks on the House Crows’ nest (Corvus splendens) by Asian Koels (Eudynamys scolopacea). Well, on Wednesday 28th Dec 2005, the tenth day after they began building their nest, the crows were again seen. That morning at 8.20 am two crows stood on the branch beside their nest, cawed several times and flew off. Soon after a koel called and two females hopped cautiously from the lower branches right up to the nest. They took turns to climb in and stayed a few seconds each time before flying off.

One crow returned at 9.30 am, stood at the edge of the nest, made a 3-sec inspection and flew away. Soon after, a single female koel sneaked up to the nest, climbed in and out, and in again.

I saw a crow again at 2.10 pm when it hopped out of its nest, cawed and flew away. As the nest was unattended, two females and a male koel flew from a nearby bauhinia tree (Bauhinia sp.). A female climbed into the nest, came out and the male climbed in as if to inspect the eggs. The other female tried to get into the nest but the male charged at her while making that loud koel call. This loud call brought back a crow that chased them all away. But the crow also stayed away.

At 4.15 pm the male koel was inside the nest again for about 5 seconds before flying off. A while later a female flew up and hopped in and out of the nest several times.

At 6 pm, three koels were seen on the tree. A female’s ‘kuacking’ brought a black bird flying in towards the tree but it was intercepted by another black bird, both flew away from the tree. Meanwhile the female koels took turns to hop in and out of the nest. The first female made one of the loudest ‘kuack-kuack’ sound when she hopped out of the nest (like a hen cackling after it has laid its egg). When the two black birds returned, the females flew off. One of the black birds landed on a branch near the nest, peered in and flew off again into the dark.

At 6.15 pm a broken egg shell, still moist with albumin was on the ground below the angsana tree (Pterocarpus indicus). Shell was blue-greenish with dark speckles.

The next day (eleventh day) saw batches of koels boldly, and taking their own time, hopping in and out of the unattended nest. The male koel made two visits to inspect the nest.

Are there more than a dozen koel eggs in there? If the blue-green eggs were crow eggs, then the crow had laid only 2 eggs!

The crows have since abandoned their nest! After the dramatic night raid of 27th December, no crow was seen incubating.

Everything quiet this morning, with no activities. Is this the end of the koel-crow saga? Are crows smarter than what we think? Will they not play surrogate parents anymore?

Contributed by Angie Ng, 30th December 2005
Image also by Angie.

The three eggs in the crows’ nest as seen in Tang’s earlier image, also shown here, show similarity in colour and pattern. However, one of the eggs is of slightly different shape than the other two and smaller. And according to the literature, the Asian Koel’s (Eudynamys scolopacea) egg is smaller than that of the House Crow’s (Corvus splendens). Can the smaller egg then be that of the koel’s? We need to monitor the situation and wait for the hatching. The nestling of the koel can easily be differentiated from that of the crow once feathers develop (see image of koel nestling, bottomj).

Angie found bluish shells with dark speckles as well as light cream ones at the base of the tree where the crows’ nest was the day after koels attacked the nest (see image on left as well as earlier posting. Is it possible that either the crow or the koel laid eggs of two different colours? After all, as Lin Yang Chen pointed out, there are reports of egg dimorphism among certain species of birds. Unfortunately bird watchers have yet to pay much attention to such details.

Input by Hung Bun Tang, Angie Ng and Lin Yang Chen
Images (top to bottom) by HBT, Angie and YC

During my career as an airline pilot, I have only killed two birds, those that I know of, that is. The first was during my initial training in Seletar in a cessna. Not more than 7 hours of flying to my credit, my instructor and I were out in the training area above the catchment area doing some exercises.

We are always on the look out for Brahminy Kites (Haliastur indus), birds that often reach the heights that we fly. But we normally can avoid them. Taking a hit with a kite can be fatal to both the plane and the bird.

On that fateful flight, I saw a fast moving bird-like object from the corner of my view. If it had kept its initial heading, it would have gone right past in front without any problem. Instead it took a sharp turn and headed almost directly at the aircraft and in the final moments it pealed off to the right.

Next I heard a bang that echoed through the rear of the aircraft. We had initially thought it was some shockwave from some gun firing below or quarrying activity. But we saw no smoke or anything. And since the aircraft was ok, we carried on.

Only when we got back to the ground did we see the bloodstain on the fuselage of the aircraft. The bird has turned too late and got caught in the propeller’s wash and was slammed into the fuselage of the aircraft.

My second encounter was with a swallow. It did the same stunt on the day I first had my training flight on the 747 in Changi. We were doing circuits in an empty aircraft to make sure I could land the aircraft before I was cleared for further training.

Just as I came in for a landing and passing over Pulau Tekong, another swallow did the same stunt. This time it slammed right onto the windshield on my side of the aircraft, leaving a splatter of spittle and blood on the windshield.

These speed demons of the sky never know when they have met more than their match. But for a swallow to underestimate a 747, it must be really out of its mind.

In Perth we trained at Jandakot Airport. And as luck would have it, they had a refuse dump on the end of one of the runways. Birds flocked to the dump and returned to the coast on a daily basis. We had to keep a lookout for other aircraft traffic and also dodge pelicans (Pelecanus sp.) and flocks of gulls (Larus sp.) that were frequenting the dump. The gulls were a problem at night. We could not see them until it was too late. But in the day, they were not a problem. It was the pelicans that were dangerous in the daytime. Because of their size, they had to soar on thermals to get to a good cruising height with a favourable wind to blow them to the coast. And guess where the best thermals were? Right above the hot tarmac of the runway. The birds were hard to spot from above as they were not often in huge flocks. But there had been cases where small light aircrafts collided with pelicans. And it was a miracle how the aircraft made it back on ground safely after such an impact.

Contributed by Jeremy Lee; image of Chinook by Ashley Ng.

Comments and image of goose by YC: Air strikes of birds are commoner than we think. At the worst it results in loss of lives. Otherwise the plane needs repairs that can cost from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars. A solitary strike with a small bird does not do much damage. A larger bird like a Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) is another matter. Most air crashes occur when a bird hits the windshield or is sucked into the engine. Most bird strikes occur at takeoff but this does not mean that there are less strikes when the plane is in the air, as many may go unreported. Military aircrafts are usually more vulnerable than commercial ones as they generally fly at lower altitudes where most birds fly as well as at higher speed.

Many methods have been used to make airports safe from birds. These include use of dogs, Peregrine Falcons and Gyrfalcons as well as playing bird distress calls.