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
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
