“I have been watching crows harvesting chicks from the date palm trees around my condo. The palm trees are pretty unprotected and the crows make a round every week or so, often managing to leave with a chick in beak.

“I managed to chase away a crow that was trying to snatch a chick from a Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis) that nested in a date palm tree just outside my window (left). After being chased away, it never returned and the chicks fledged successfully.

“It appears that the crows have a fixed route of locations that they visit and they only make a visit approximately once a week.

“Wonder if anyone has similar observations.”

Jeremy Lee
Singapore
9th February 2010

“In response to the posting on the White-bellied Sea-eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) being mobbed by six crows, I would like to share a similar event that I watched on 30th January 2007. The location was Gunung Rapat in Ipoh. This location is fairly inland but have seen White-bellied Sea-eagle intermittently near the limestone hills.

“My wife and I were watching a serpent eagle circling high up when suddenly an aerial battle between a crow and a juvenile White-bellied Sea-eagle intervened. The crow was the primary aggressor. It flew in and nipped the right wing of the eagle (above). It then continued to chase the eagle with further attempts at damage.

“The battle continued for close to 10 minutes with many positions taken by the eagle as can be seen in the shots above. Felt almost like a “kung fu” battle at times.

“The crow won the battle, possibly because it was protecting a nest or the eagle was too young to adequately retaliate. Wish we had a video!

“As we were watching near a road, quite a few passersby stopped to ask what we were watching and to join in.”

Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
27th November 2009

Samson Tan was at Singapore’s offshore island of Pulau Ubin some weeks ago when he observed a House Crow (Corvus splendens) perching on a branch of a leafless tree eating a piece of meat (above left). After eating enough, it placed the remaining piece in branch fork, compacting it carefully with its bill to secure it (above right). It then left the scene (below).

Crows and ravens are known to cache food for later. Usually, they hide it in a covered site and return back later to feed on it. Should there be another bird watching, it would return and remove it to another location. In this case, the piece of meat was cached openly, easily seen by other birds and thus stolen. Was the bird inexperienced not to hide it properly?

An earlier post on crows caching fish can be seen HERE.

This post appears courtesy of Samson Tan of Manta’s Experience…”.

Forest Ang was in Butterworth Town, Penang, Malaysia recently and sent in this account:

“Took these interesting “raiders” in Butterworth, Penang today. First, I saw a crow pecking on a sack on a lorry waiting for the traffic light to turn green (above). Note the traffic lights. Then I saw a pigeon or two partially hidden. And just as the traffic turned green, crows and pigeons started to fly off the lorry (below).

“Ha, ha, so the birds are robbing the grains (I presume) from the lorry. Very smart indeed. I think they have been doing this quite often judging by the pecking by the crow. They just knew which lorry to “rob”.

“That crow pecked to open a hole on the sack. As for the pigeons, I didn’t have any chance to see what they were doing.”

We have an earlier report of Mynas scavenging from trash trucks at the traffic light junction in Singapore…HERE.

A pair of House Crows (Corvus splendens) was observed in a residential area perched on a television antenna. One was black and the other was a light brown colour- and that was something odd (below left).

Let’s listen in.

“Ma, why am I so different?”

“Did I fall into a bucket of bleach?” asked the juvenile crow in sepia.

“No…, you did not and I don’t know why you were born like this, dear. And that makes you even more special!” replied the black House Crow as she proceeded to preen her chick tenderly.

Feather shafts of birds sink into the skin organ to receive the necessary nourishment for growth and endowment of birds’ plumages. Colours of feathers are determined by the genetic make up and quantity distribution of pigmentation cells present in the skin.

Leucism in birds is a genetic disorder whereby the pigmentation cells are unevenly distributed, hence resulting in patches of feathers looking paler, bleached looking or show white. (While Albinism dictates that the skin body is totally devoid of pigmentation cell. Hence, if one looks into the iris of an albino, it always shows reddish-pink or near equivalent.)

The image (above right) shows an adult leucistic House Crow. Note especially the uneven discolouration of the beak, white naped patch and wings and dark eyes to compare with a flock of normal House Crows (below left).

It was also observed that the leucistic House Crow was treated as an out-caste and chased off by other crows while the former was scavenging and ate lunch (above right).

It is not a common phenomenon and science has yet to figure out why leucism occurs. Perhaps… it is one of those things that Mother Nature, the divine architect sees fit – to be allowed to mastermind mistakes now and then!

And which ascertain that in our world, nothing and nobody is perfect… and we be allowed to do so sometimes too.

Three sightings of leucistic House Crows were made in 2008 at the same location.

AVIAN WRITER DAISY O’NEILL PENANG MALAYSIA
© LEUCISM IN CROWS