Enraged Crows in the Backyard - A Curious Scene

[SeekinTruth]

About a week ago, as I was getting ready to take a shower, I heard a big commotion, a bunch of crows making a really big racket. I went out on the balcony looking over the backyard to see what was going on. There were about four or five large crows crowing "at the top of their lungs" and flying erratically around, swooping down and flying up to tree branches, etc.

I saw that a young, smallish cat had caught a grey, rather slim pigeon in its mouth and the crows were going wild and swooping down at the cat as if trying to chase it away and the cat was on the defensive trying to get away to a safe place to eat its recent catch. I thought it was interesting that crows would be not only so upset at this event, but also seem to be trying to protect another species of bird from a predator.

Over the last couple of years I've seen (mostly) young cats try to sneak up on birds - sparrows, pigeons, and crows - and catch them. But usually the birds evade the cats pretty easily. This pigeon must really not have been paying attention or maybe was wounded to have gotten caught and killed by the young cat. The older cats rarely bother trying to catch birds as an upstairs neighbor regularly feeds all of them, but the young ones are, I guess, unable to resist the instinctual urge.

I just thought this was a curious scene.

 

[gwb1995]

I agree with you about this being a strange scene. I have watched crows acting in a similar manner, but for different reasons, as they were trying to rid their territory of other birds. What you witnessed makes me wonder if the crows sensed danger due to the cats presence, and were taking action to protect their territory and themselves, and not so much trying to defend or protect the pigeon. Just a thought, thanks for sharing this.

gwb

 

[Beau]

My guess is the crows were trying to get the bird from the cat to eat it for themselves. I don't think it's all that unusual for the cat to have captured the bird. A few of my own cats were daft bird hunters, always leaving them at my doorstep for me to find.