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Feeding crows and hummingbirds

Rocco

Rocco

Wandering Trainwreck
V.I.P Member
I discovered in recent years I enjoy feeding birds. I mainly feed crows and hummingbirds now. Bird seed drew lots of awesome feathered friends but also unwanted attention from other animals so I stopped that. I do put food out for the local crows when they talk to me with their o-agh sounds. The hummingbirds look at me and make noises while eating or battling with another hummingbird.

Do you feed birds? If so what kind?
 
For two years now, I have an appointment with a pair of ravens who get a hard boiled egg in the morning. Of course, being ravens I'm the one being manipulated but it's fun all the same.
 
Rocco said:
I discovered in recent years I enjoy feeding birds. I mainly feed crows and hummingbirds now. Bird seed drew lots of awesome feathered friends but also unwanted attention from other animals so I stopped that. I do put food out for the local crows when they talk to me with their o-agh sounds. The hummingbirds look at me and make noises while eating or battling with another hummingbird.

Do you feed birds? If so what kind?
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For decades now we've been feeding the crows at my place in the country. At this point we've seen several generations of crow families on our property. In the winter time we take the snow shoes down to the section of the yard where we feed them and tramp the snow down so the food doesn't sink into the snow. There was a Nature of Things (nature documentary series) on Crows many years ago that was so fascinating. Crows are the 3rd smartest animals on the planet. Humans, Dolphins (debatable if they should be 1st or 2nd), then crows. Capable of multi step problem solving involving creating tools to help with steps. They also have a very diverse set of vocalizations with over 2000 distinct calls and a set of vocalizations that just for the nest, as well as one for the wider area. I also think it's really neat that crows help raise their siblings. A new crow doesn't leave the next the year it's born. It stays for an extra year to help raise and teach the next batch. Only then does it leave to establish it's own roost.
 
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I feed hummingbirds and all wild birds that come to the feeders. Just as important as providing food, is to provide freshwater year-round if you really want to help birds.

The hummers are migrating now from where I live, across the Gulf of Mexico to Vera Cruz, MX, where they'll overwinter, before returning to the north to mate and raise their babies in early spring. There are dozens of them around each of the feeders right now, engaging in chattering and aerial combat.

We mostly have ruby-throated hummers here. My grandmother taught me when I was small how to tell the sex of hummers: all females have lace on their skirts (white on the tip of their tails), all males wear a red necktie, and juvenile males wear neither lace on their skirts nor have yet developed their red throats.

I feed the wild birds plain black oil sunflower seeds. I've learned to be wary of pre-packaged mixed bird seeds from stores because it contains a lot of seeds such as millet, that I do not want to grow in my yard and which the birds will not eat. I also put out suet blocks for the birds in winter. They need the extra fat and calories to keep warm. Woodpeckers and big songbirds like mockingbirds, cardinals, and blue jays particularly like suet.

BTW, I live in the North American migratory bird flyway that follows the Mississippi River so I see a lot of birds passing through that don't live here. It is one of the largest flyways in the world.
 
Crows are also spectacular mimics and can be taught to make human sounds as well. The Australian Magpie is a type of crow too, but they have a beautiful song voice unlike others of the Corvidae family. The Aussie magpie can remember and recognise around 200 faces and it remembers who was naughty and who was nice, during nesting season they get very territorial and will attack people they don't like but leave people they like alone.

 
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Crows are also spectacular mimics and can be taught to make human sounds as well. The Australian Magpie is a type of crow too, but they have a beautiful song voice unlike others of the Corvidae family. The Aussie magpie can remember and recognise around 200 faces and it remembers who was naughty and who was nice, during nesting season they get very territorial and will attack people they don't like but leave people they like alone.

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Mockingbirds here will attack people and pets that come too close to their nests. I suspect that they also recognize individuals as they never swoop at me, but they do go after my husband. Mockingbirds are our state bird.
 
Rocco said:
I discovered in recent years I enjoy feeding birds. I mainly feed crows and hummingbirds now. Bird seed drew lots of awesome feathered friends but also unwanted attention from other animals so I stopped that. I do put food out for the local crows when they talk to me with their o-agh sounds. The hummingbirds look at me and make noises while eating or battling with another hummingbird.

Do you feed birds? If so what kind?
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i had a budgie he decided to flee his cage outside never seen my lil baby after that still miss him and its been years
 
I just had simultaneous visitors
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I love crows. I never saw them at my house so I started walking around the neighborhood with peanuts every day for months. When I spotted crows, I dropped some peanuts. They eventually followed me home. Now I put out peanuts and some dog food every day and they visit. They built nests closer to my house this year and I got to see the little ones in the morning. I love them so much.
 
saturnv said:
They built nests closer to my house this year and I got to see the little ones in the morning. I love them so much.
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Watch out if they start coming inside your house. They're extremely intelligent and they'll make a mess looking for food. They recognise the images on food packaging and know what's inside.
 
I don't think they will try to come inside anytime soon. They are still very nervous around people and fly away easily. I am ok with that though. I think a healthy distrust of people is good for crows.

I should also point out that I read it is important to use unsalted peanuts if you feed crows. Salt is said to be bad for them. I am not sure if that is true, but it is easy enough to get big bags of unsalted peanuts near the other bird food at the store.
 
I only ever feed our magpies fresh meat, or sometimes as a special treat a tiny amount of shredded cheese. The babies really like the cheese. I also don't feed them often enough for it to become habitual for them, that can create all sorts of problems for the birds and for local residents.

But they know me and know I'm friendly and if I'm sitting on my front veranda they'll come and say hello. I never get attacked during nesting season.
 
I can charm birds into eating out of my hand. I love crows too. And ravens. Owls are my absolute favorite though.

If I had another chance at my youth, I think I'd become a falconer.
 
Rocco said:
I discovered in recent years I enjoy feeding birds. I mainly feed crows and hummingbirds now. Bird seed drew lots of awesome feathered friends but also unwanted attention from other animals so I stopped that. I do put food out for the local crows when they talk to me with their o-agh sounds. The hummingbirds look at me and make noises while eating or battling with another hummingbird.

Do you feed birds? If so what kind?
Click to expand...
Pigeons, magpies, ring neck doves, a couple of playful squirrels and at night, a meandering hedgehog.

I love crows and ravens, but none ever visit.
 
This is not really actively feeding them, but I have a very big blueberry bush in my garden and this autumn it overfloweth with berries. I left berries on the bush on purpose because birds eat them. And today a gang of blackbirds raided it. :) They feasted on blueberries. So that was fun to watch. I do also actively feed birds, especially during winter when snow makes it difficult for them to find food.

I also saw something special today, around 100 crows in one large group. They gather in something we call a "crow-court" here. It really is an amazing sight when they fill the sky, circling and making a lot of sound.
 
Forest Cat said:
This is not really actively feeding them, but I have a very big blueberry bush in my garden and this autumn it overfloweth with berries. I left berries on the bush on purpose because birds eat them. And today a gang of blackbirds raided it. :) They feasted on blueberries. So that was fun to watch. I do also actively feed birds, especially during winter when snow makes it difficult for them to find food.

I also saw something special today, around 100 crows in one large group. They gather in something we call a "crow-court" here. It really is an amazing sight when they fill the sky, circling and making a lot of sound.
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In English we call a group of crows a “murder of crows.”
 
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