I have a fifty tits of grey post lined up, but a quick interlude about predators, social birds, and cooperation.

I think I didn’t mention it here, but this winter, I started leaving walnuts out for the crows – leftovers from years past that we found in the storage room, but still good. To be honest, this started when I noticed a ragtag group of corvids (crows, jays and magpies – not explaining the word ‘corvid’, all three were members of this loose affiliation of walnut aficionados) eating the few nuts we had straight from the tree. It was a small crop anyway, so I don’t feel too bitter about it…

Anyway, I started feeding them through the cold snowy months, and while the jays and magpies haven’t been sticking around, there’s a small flock of 4 or 5 crows (family group?) that regularly cleans out the (much cheaper, if buying) peanuts.

Parallel to this I’ve of course been feeding the small birds, who have been wonderfully diverse, but more about that later. When I go out to make the rounds, there’s at least one crow nearby, observing, though never polite enough to respond to my greeting. But we play a game, I put peanuts in tricky places, and they find them all.

Sometimes more than one comes to the crowfeeder, the most I’ve seen at one time is three. And one always takes two nuts away to share, but I don’t know if it’s the same bird – once I watched it fit 3 peanuts into its beak!

Yesterday I came home from work, and having a conversation with Ronja, when I noticed a pair of crows playing in the snow – we had a fresh snowfall overnight, and they were rolling around and pushing their bellies through it, possibly a snowbath in lieu of water. (Ronja knows not to chase the crows, I’ve told her several times.) Usually they don’t land in the yard if someone is outside, so I was quite pleased to see them so brave. Didn’t get a photo, of course. Just the evidence.

What does all this have to do with the title, though?

This morning, I put the water on to boil and went to watch the birds while I waited, a lot of activity including now two pairs of blackbirds (one pair overwintered, was quite surprised).

I turned my back for a minute or so, to walk to the kitchen and make the tea, and I returned to some kind of chaos – several large swooping birds, one of unusual colouring and shape, little ones scattering everywhere! After one last swoop, the unusual one glided to a nearby pine, and glared over his shoulder…

Yes, we have a sparrowhawk! He sat on that branch for a while, quite displeased, because guarding the little birds were two large grey crows, sitting on the telephone wires, not leaving. After a few minutes of this, one of them had had enough – while one remained on guard, the other flew over to chase the sparrowhawk away and take his place.

The little birds are safe and happily feeding, and I made sure to leave extra nuts out soon afterward.

And that is how the crows prevented my birdfeeder from becoming a hawkfeeder.