FRIEND CROW?
Dive-bombing birds terrorize pedestrians each spring, but experts say they’re just protecting their young
Crows are “just like us” and don’t deserve a bad rap for their springtime dive-bomb attacks on humans, local bird experts say.
Each May and June during nesting season, reports of crow attacks surge as the birds work overtime to protect their young from people, pets and other predators.
Pedestrians cower and swat as the birds swoop down and use their beaks and talons to fend them off — and such has been the case outside a Cloverdale shopping centre where crows have recently terrorized customers and employees.
Derek Matthews, founder of the Vancouver Avian Research Centre, said attacks by the highly intelligent scavengers occur, in part, because “no other bird species has such a human-like personality and social system” as crows.
“This whole rap that crows have of being evil is basically totally untrue,” he said. “They’re basically just trying to live their lives and feed their families — just like us.”
George Clulow, president of B.C. Field Ornithologists, said that in addition to humans, crows have to worry about predation by raccoons, ravens and several other species.
“It’s a bit of a war zone out there,” he said.
“We have to respect the kind of situation that living in the wild means, and so they do have to be very defensive of their young. It’s a dangerous world out there for a crow.”
To observe this “dangerous world” in action, The Province headed to an oft-cited crow-human battleground at a parking lot in the 800-block Richards Street in Vancouver.
As a reporter arrived at the scene, a young man dashed across the road while fending off a particularly aggressive crow that had swooped down to claw his head.
A pair of crows cawed as they skipped across the hoods of vehicles, their talons menacingly clicking against the metal.
Another victim, Beverly Siemens, was visibly shaken after being attacked while walking past the lot.
“I thought it was actually my friend that maybe jumped up and surprised me because there was a little scratchy feeling on my head,” she said.
“So I jumped, I turned around, and there was a crow just flying off.”
And a day earlier, Maestro Bramwell Tovey of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra posted to Twitter that he’d nearly been knocked over by a “forceful blow” to his head during what he thought was a mugging. His attacker turned out to be “a crow that flew full speed” into his ear.
Though the attacks may be frightening, Matthews said people need to understand that crows have much at stake after having “invested a lot” into their young — up to a few weeks incubating their eggs, a month or more feeding them and months more to fledge.
“Crows are very territorial and they’re particularly protective as soon as young fledglings leave the nest,” he said.
“If they believe there’s any kind of a threat nearby — be it cats or dogs or people — they often will attack to push (them) away from these fledglings.”
And while most crows make their presence known in the fall and winter as thousands of them congregate in Burnaby to roost, Matthews said people need to accept that crows have learned to coexist with humans and are “very comfortable with scavenging in the urban environment.”
Clulow noted that crows have a very strong family life, often helping their parents raise the next year’s young. They’re also “very faithful” to their neighbourhoods and will return to them daily even after moving into bigger roosts in the fall and winter, he said.
“The crows that you can see in your neighbourhood are your neighbourhood crows,” Clulow said. “They’re attached to the same place you are.”
Matthews and Clulow both strongly discouraged acts of retaliation against dive-bombing crows, who have been proven to remember faces and hold a grudge.
“Because of that facial recognition, as part of their evolutionary process, they’ve learned to zero-in on people who either feed them ... or harass them,” Matthews said.
A 2009 study by John Marzluff at the University of Washington found that crows recognized the faces of researchers and volunteers who wore either “neutral” or “dangerous” masks.
The crows would scold and divebomb the dangerous-mask wearers and could even pick them out of a crowd.
They continued to hold a grudge several years later.
Clulow said that those who upset a crow should prepare to have their bad reputation shared with other crows, who will react to a complainant’s “alarm” and “aggression” calls.
Matthews’ advice for those who find themselves a target: “The best thing to do is simply to move away from them. Yeah, it might be little bit scary. But they’re not really going to hurt you — a crow can’t do any major damage.”
The Vancouver park board said in an email that the City occasionally receives calls about aggressive crows, but doesn’t actively track those calls.
The City also recommends that victims of dive-bombings find an alternative route, adding that an umbrella could help, too.