First, a couple of birds that have been in the yard lately.  The first is a Eurasian Collared dove which I believe I mentioned in my last post.  Not the greatest photo but it will do for a record shot.

Next up… a juvenile American robin.  The bird is full-sized but the spots on its breast give it away.  However this bird is not new to the world.  It flew directly to one of the few huckleberry bushes in the yard and immediately began plucking berries!

However, I have a tale to tell about crows.  This photo is a juvenile that, with its family, has been hanging around the yard since it fledged a few weeks ago.  The feature that marks this bird as a juvenile is the light-colored marking at the base of the bill, a trait exhibited on many other species of juvenile birds.

And now for the tale…

For the past two years I had occasionally driven through the local marina on the way home and selectively fed some of the crows in the parking lot.  It seemed that there were a few crows that recognized my car but all the other crows in the vicinity keyed off the actions of those few who recognized either me or my greenish-blue Honda Honda CR-V.  I never took any action to attract the crows… I always kept my hands in the car but my driver’s window was usually rolled down so that I could throw out the occasional peanut. 

On occasion I would drive in other areas of town several blocks away from the marina and the crows would clearly recognize me.  They exhibited this recognition by following my car along the street, either flying alongside or landing beside the car and watching me.  My theory was that they recognized the car and that was their key to the peanuts.  There were a couple of other Hondas in town that were exactly like mine and I often wondered what happened when/if they drove through the marina, as the crowd of crows in the winter could sometimes reach as many as 60-80. 

 When breeding season arrived in the spring of 2013 all of the crows disappeared from the marina parking lot.  The crows pair up at that time of year and spend time building nests and defending their nesting area from other crows and predators such as ravens, eagles, raccoons, etc.   So for about two months I encountered no crows in the marina parking lot. 

 In late June I drove through the parking lot a couple of times and there were a few crows (maybe 5-6 at the most) back in the parking lot.  On the first day they were back I was driving through the parking lot looking at the marina out the passenger window of my Honda when I became aware of a distraction out my driver’s window.  I turned and there were a couple of crows flying along beside the car, periodically landing and looking up at me.  This established that they retained in memory, for approximately two months without reinforcement, the fact that they could garner peanuts from the vehicle!  I thought that this was an accomplished feat which just added to my respect for these birds.  But there was more to come. 

 In late June a 2013 silver Toyota RAV-4 I had ordered about a month previously arrived at the dealership and I took possession of the vehicle.  The new vehicle replaced the 2011 Honda CR-V that was blue-green in color. 

 Although I made a few trips through the marina in my new Toyota RAV-4 after it was delivered, I saw no crows.  This was probably due in part to extensive lawn maintenance that was taking place in the area one day and the fact that the parking lot was uncharacteristically full of vehicles, the owners of which were out on boats at the beginning of the summer boating season.  Finally after some of the parking lot activity had died I made my first trip through the parking lot in my new vehicle when crows were present.  The first I saw of them was as they were flying directly towards me from almost 100-yards away!  I had no expectation that they would be attracted to the new car, as it was silver and my former car had been blue-green.  However the crows had clearly spotted me before I spotted them.  They flew directly to the new car and began their behavior that indicated they knew there were peanuts to be obtained.  Again, I made no overt actions which could have clued them.  As far as I am concerned, the only explanation is that they recognized my face from a distance of almost 100-yards!