I've been watching a pair of crows building a nest lately. Today, one of them flew down to the wide grass verge on the other side of the road just outside my window, with a largish piece of something like bread in its beak. It hopped about for a bit, then placed the food carefully on the ground, and began tearing up bits of grass which it placed over the food. It looked exactly as if it was burying or hiding the food - storing it for later? Is that right? Do crows do that?
Welcome to the community Clare.
Crows do indeed store food. The clever thing is, they store all kinds of food and they exactly know where each food is. Further research has shown that crows eat stored food in the order of it going off - for example, they'll eat meat etc before bread because meat would go off faster. Clever aren't they?
'Dip a dee dah, dip a dee ay, we're not seeing any birds to-day...'
I havn't seen a crow do this, but Jays and Magpies certainly do. I am sure someone will know but it shows how clever they are. Last year a magpie spent ages hiding monkey nuts around my garden, only to be followed by my dog, digging them up and eating them.
Sarah
I've learned that I still have a lot to learn...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bramble67/
Welcome to thye RSPB Community Clare
There's an old saying that goes - If we all wore beaks and black feathers, few of us would be bright enough to be a crow. There's a lot of sense in that.......
JBNTS
Every day a little more irate about bird of prey persecution, and I have a cat - Got a problem with that?
Clare Bailey said: I've been watching a pair of crows building a nest lately. Today, one of them flew down to the wide grass verge on the other side of the road just outside my window, with a largish piece of something like bread in its beak. It hopped about for a bit, then placed the food carefully on the ground, and began tearing up bits of grass which it placed over the food. It looked exactly as if it was burying or hiding the food - storing it for later? Is that right? Do crows do that?
Hi Clare
The factory I worked at had large hangers with tin sheets, The local pair would hide bits of bread uner the tin sheets on the roof of a certain hanger. Foxes also hide food, and when working nights as a security man we have watched foxes digging holes to hide food. Thefunny thing was the fox would push the dirt over the food with its nose and pad it down with its nose and chin. never once saw it use its paws to scrape the soil back.
We watched them on cctv.
Ray
a good laugh is better than a tonic
All corvids stash. In our house (which has a free-roaming magpie), cutlery is regularly moved and items (jammy dodgers, one shallot, window locks, tweezers etc etc) found among clothing, and small items lurk all over the place! My friend, who has a jackdaw that flies free from her house, found that her chimney was smoking so asker her husband to take the fireplace out. This is what they found that had been put down the chimney...
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
A crow I'm watching right now is flying back and forth carrying a acorns which it plants in a mown embankment. It walks around seemingly inspecting the site, occasionally placing the acorn down to do a test dig with its beak, then rams in the acorn when it's made a suitable hole and flies off to collect another.