No Safe Passage

American Crow

A friend of ours say that this is the time of year when there is no safe passage for crows. It seems as if everytime we see a crow it's getting dive-bombed by Red-winged Blackbirds, orioles, Common Grackles, Eastern Kingbirds and others. With good reason — crows are notorious for eating the eggs and young of other birds.

The other day we saw a crow fly across our field with something in its mouth that looked like a nestling bird. A grackle was in hot pursuit. Made us wince. We don't like to thinkg that crows do such things. But then again, they have to eat too and feed their hungry young who are in a nest in our woods.

It's not easy to see predation in nature, but that's how it goes. This is a time of year where almost all birds are strongly trying to reproduce, raise their young, and thus pass on their genes, insuring the survival of their own species. So we view predation in that context, and marvel at the strength of the reproductive forces around us.