![]() ![]() ![]() First, they have to turn the box upside down, then put a foot or whole weight on the box and finally pick at the clip to open the box. I “hide” their favorite morsels into plastic boxes… those with these clips they have to pick at to get the tidbits. The crows also like small slices of cheese, but I stopped offering cheese at this crucial time of the year because of the birds’ lactose intolerance. => Many thanks for giving me some hope that they might try a second breeding attempt. Again they both were on the ground simultaneously, no action at the nest as it had been before. Fed the pair as usual – peanuts in the shell, walnuts, hard boiled eggs, dry dog food and even small balls of fresh steak tartare, a small dish of water(!)). Have been back again at my site on June 1st for 6 hours and the overall situation has remained unchanged. Kaeli, I’m sorry for being a bit late now. So use your best judgment this summer and remember if you feel your situation is unique and has not been addressed by the flow charts provided, give a rehab facility a call and let them help you decide if an animal needs to be removed before you make the mistake of taking babies away from their parents. Even in most of those cases, simply creating a makeshift nest out of a basket and securing it to a tree, or placing the baby in a bush and leaving the area, is much better than taking it away to a facility. Only if it’s trapped in a storm drain, naked, injured, cornered by a cat, or after several hours has not been visited by its parents is it appropriate to intervene. The main thing to remember is as long as the baby is mostly feathered and being attended by its parents, it’s just where it needs to be. For babies that are naked, bleeding, have drooping wings, or are within reach of a dog or cat, etc., the following flow chart is excellent and will help navigate the situation (I’ve thrown in the mammal one too just for good measure). Simply knowing this piece of corvid biology will lay to rest the concerns for most situations you may find yourself in this summer. If your fledgling looks like this then it is okay. This is the stage of development that most babies will be at when they leave the nest. It’s not a great compromise, but its continued selection suggests it’s the one that works best. 1 By pushing kids out sooner, the less developed ones may get caught by a predator or killed by some other means, but the stronger individuals stand a better chance of escaping. Although this strategy is risky and leads to lower fledgling survival rates than for species that wait until the babies are fully flighted, the alternative is quite literally an “all your eggs in one basket” situation where the longer the kids stay in the nest the more chance they stand of being discovered by a predator who will then wipe out the whole brood. For crows, this early departure can be on the order of 7-10 days before they can fly. So how do you avoid making the same error?įirst, understand that corvid babies (and many other open-cup nesting songbirds) very often leave the nest before they are completely flighted. In many of these cases, these animals did not need help and now they’ve been separated from their parents or mother and stand a much lower chance of surviving once they’re released. ![]() I have many friends and colleagues who are either licensed wildlife rehabbers or who spent summers volunteering with their local rehab facilities, that can attest to the dozens of animals that get brought in during the spring and summer by well intentioned folks who assumed that finding a baby meant it needed help. The answer, almost always, is to ignore your instincts and good intentions. Within about a week the bill will turn black like and adults’ but the eyes and mouth corners with remain blue and pink respectively. The bright blue eyes and pink bill tell you right away that this is a baby crow. ![]()
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