This weekend I kept my eyes & ears open for the newly arrived baby crows.  

Saturday afternoon it was obvious that the crow on our neighbors roof was a baby.   It had that ruffled kind lost look and what sealed the deal is it’s baby cry.   The young ones don’t really caw till they are older but rather have a cry for food sound.   The other tell-tale sign was his body language.  They kind of shrug as they cry that adult birds don’t do.  I find them very cute actually but very vulnerable.  The other way to identify them is if you are close enough  they have blue eyes.   As they age the eyes turn dark.

Today on my trip to the beach I fed the crew at 110th & MVD.   Three adults came in for the bread and as I walked down the road to give them free space to eat I heard the baby crow cry.   This baby was actually chasing it’s parent who had bread in its mouth.  Crying all the way for his piece of the bounty.   Would never have recognized him as a youngster if it wasn’t for the begging behaviour and his baby voice.

On the way down to the beach I checked out the nest I had identified several weeks ago by watching the twig collecting behavior and had heard the little one crying for food two weeks ago.   Last week on my trip by there I didn’t hear anything and feared he had met with harm.   This is the same nest I posted pictures of the guards on duty in adjacent trees.   THis week on the way back up the trail I was rewarded with the baby cries again.   So, I was relieved he is still growing and getting stronger.

I think I have heard several other baby cries in the Madronnas on the hill there.    As I got closer to the street level I think I found another nest.   The parents were playing coy though so I wasn’t sure if it was an active nest or not.  I’ll keep my eyes on it next week.

Finally, the tree we thought had a nest being built-in our work parking lot down in Renton has seemed to turn out to be a bust.  No recent activity seen around it lately.   That pair raised a baby last year in a tree out our window and one across the street a block away.  Maybe they returned to that fir tree since it has less car traffic to bother them.   We were hopeful of the tree in our lot since we can see it so well from our 2nd story office windows.   A treat to break up the spreadsheet computer screens.

That’s it for today!!