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"King" crows

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Subject: "King" crows
From: "James Lambert" <>
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:26:51 +1000
Hello fellow birders - I am curious if anyone can add anything enlightening to this snippet of crow behaviour that I garnered from an odd little birdwatching tome that I recently read.

The following text comes from a book entitled "An Aviary On The Plains" by one Henry G. Lamond written in 1934 (chap. xiii., page 69). It concerns crow behaviour that seems extraordinary to me and I was wondering if anyone was familiar with (a) the behaviour (obviously shooting crows is not the usual pasttime of your average birder!!) and (b) the term "king crow".

Henry G. Lamond was a well-respected wildlife author of the 30s-50s. Generally the book "An Aviary On The Plains" is pretty accurate in terms of bird behaviour, habitat, nesting, interactions, etc. The "Plains" area is the table-land of north central Australia, and the crow in question is the Torresian crow (Corvus orru).
[TEXT BEGINS]
 `Paff!' the rifle speaks and, with a `Cah!' a crow drops.
  Immediately all other crows leave. They know the  meaning of a rifle.
But sometimes a man shoots a king crow. This bird isn't recognizable by any outward sign, and when he's alive the other crows don't show him any marked deference. In fact, it's only a fluke when a man drops a king - he can't pick him before he shoots him. We'll imagine we've shot any number from one to fifty, and as one particular bird falls he calls as all the others seem to have done. But this time there's a difference. Immediately, instead of flying away, the attendant crows hovering around raise a wild pandemonium. One faithful courtier rests on the spot where the dead monarch was dropped. He sits there, peering anxiously at the body on the ground, and he calls continuously. `Paff!' the rifle speaks again, a wisp of blue smoke curling from its muzzle. That earl of crowdom drops beside his king! The other crows, instead of fleeing in terror as they usually do, gather in haste to the massacre. They perch in trees, call in anxiety and are unable to stay still a moment in their restlessness. There is a black cloud in the air, weaving and threading the mazes of a dance of mourning, and as far as we can see black lines of calling shadows are hurrying to the wake. The thing is uncanny; instead of avoiding the fatal spot these crows seem to have a blind desire to sit on the place from where their king was dropped. It's against all recognized rules of crow life.
[TEXT ENDS]

Okay, so he goes over the top with the extended metaphor. Obviously crows don't hold allegiance to a crow monarch, but do they have something analogous to an alpha male, and could this explain the behaviour that Lamond is recording? Or has Lamond merely misunderstood what he was observing entirely?

So, it is all stuff and nonsense, or is there something to this?

Anyone?

James


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