Looking out my high picture windows just now, I watched as first one and then, in a few minutes, five crows mobbed a solitary hawk circling in the sky hunting. Ultimately the hawk flew off, the crows trailing it.

I realize this is a common occurrence, but why do crows do that, and why doesn't the hawk attack the crows to defend itself? (I can see how dealing with a half dozen crows would be impractical for the hawk, but it was initially just one crow harassing it.)

I would think that for the crows a more useful approach would be to wait for the hawk to kill something, and then, as a mob, steal it. Maybe, when the hawk has killed something, it is aggressive in defending its meal?

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I don't like crows, and chase them off my property with my trusty Daisy.

Once out walking in Tokyo, I saw two crows harassing a cat in an empty lot. They were on opposite sides of the cat, and if the cat turned to attack one, the other crow would immediately attack it from the rear. I picked up a rock, threw it at one of the crows, missing but chasing the crows off. My good deed for the day.

This time of year they are "aggressively" establishing territory for hunting and nesting.

They are a murderous bunch, aren't they?

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Around here it's like they have an enforcer flying about. It sees something that could be a threat .. the bird will fly above it squawking like mad bringing in reinforcements.

They always send out a scout to see if it’s safe for them. I used to have them by the dozens until some pellet spray forced them to move to greener pastures.

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I’m your Boogie Man, uh huh.

Are you guys saying that crows perceive hawks to be a threat? In the scene I describe above, the hawk was doing its best to ignore the single crow, and then ignore the mob. It became impossible, with all the dive bombing the crows were doing, so the hawk left.

I posted a few weeks ago about a hawk killing a rabbit in my yard. While squirrels and birds made themselves scarce while the hawk was here, I've wondered if hawks eat songbirds, because there are plenty of them around. Seems the many song birds would be easier prey, if less filling, than the very occasional rabbit.

Would a hawk kill a crow, either to eat or out of annoyance?

I did a little casual research and apparently hawks and eagles will kill and eat baby crows in their nests if discovered, so the crows will chase them off when given the opportunity.

Came across this rousing story of a confrontation between eagles and crows: The Dog Fight - A Good Story - Backcountry Pilot

It's not just proper crows that do the mobbing thing. Grackles and mockingbirds will do it. I watched two mockingbirds teasing a cat on a wall and it was hysterical. One would get in front twitching his tail and squawking to distract the cat, while the second one would sneak in from behind and tweak the cat's tail. The cat would immediately about face to get his attacker who had quickly backed off and now started the squawking. Rinse and repeat. The mockingbirds here are aggressive enough to dive bomb a cat's tail while I've been petting the cat!! That was pretty funny as the cat looked round once with an expression that said, "Yeah? You and whose army?"

I saw one mockingbird hassling a pair of young kestrels that had been parked on the opposite roof ridge by their parents. The kestrels ignored the mockingbird as he kept on flying up in front flashing his wings and squawking. Then an adult kestrel returned just as this was happening. It went straight in for the merge and the mockingbird did a kind of stall turn and dived down the slope of the roof with the kestrel in hot pursuit. As the pair zoomed up the cul-de-sac a grackle in one of the trees decided to join in. There was quite a high-G furball for a few seconds until the kestrel pulled high and went back to the roof where its young were still sitting. Didn't see the mockingbird try to hassle the youngsters again that day.

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Release the Kraken

Crows have excellent vision. They can see you approaching a window or glass door before you can get there

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I’m your Boogie Man, uh huh.

Dad said a crowbar was where mom and her friends drank.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

One of the most remarkable things I've seen was a group of crows chasing a medium sized hawk into a forested area, and then returning to a large dead tree across the road to uh, crow about it.

The crow who had been on the hawks's tail was in the top of the tree, holding forth about his bravery and skill.

From low out the forest the hawk burst out at full speed and killed the loudmouth in a burst of black feathers. The other members of the gang decided they had someplace else to be.

Hawks will kill and eat crows, especially the young in nests if they can get at them. But on this occasion, it seemed personal. It's been over 20 years now, and I can still see it clearly.

Twice I've seen a red shoulder nail a dove in my yard as trees full of grackles complained. Both times the hawk was harassed, one to the point of losing his kill and flying into the distance with a handful still trailing.


The second was while checking a noisy tree I decided to water the back fence and the 'pop' sounded practically in my ear. The hawk struggled to clear the roof and perched on a decrowned palm out front with a crowd gathering. I watched it go tree to tree 30-50 feet at a time harassed the entire time until he sucked up in a thick oak around the corner and fed in peace.


Find piles of down feathers with feet in them pretty regular and the occasional squirrel remains but the dove are the favorite prey down here. Can't imagine them going for songbirds, too much work for too little return.

I once saw a golden eagle get mobbed by ravens. Ravens are jet fighters while eagles are B-52's. No comparison in agility. The eagle finally fled south, trailing ravens. I'm pretty sure I saw one latch momentarily to the back of the eagle.

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

Watched 2 ravens and 3 magpies chase a bobcat off a road killed deer. Even after the bobcat walked away, they continued to pursue the bobcat for several hundred yards before it went out of sight. I kind of like watching ravens. Highly intelligent. Reported the most intelligent animal in North America next to man. Watched a game camera video of an Osprey sitting on a nest with 3 chicks. The adult Osprey took off at the sight of the raven. The raven pursued and as they got out of sight, the raven came back and a white blob can be seen on the ground. The raven then came back to the nest and killed 2 of the Osprey chick before the video ended.

I like crows a lot, but that's probably because I had one as a pet for 5 or 6 years when I was young. They are pretty smart and have a language far beyond just the caws most people recognize them by.

He or she, I never knew which, would fly along side the school bus every day and greet me when I got off. Jim, my crows name, would fly right next to me while I was on my bicycle and it was interesting to study the way he flew. My friends hated Jim because he would dive bomb their dogs and drive them half mad. I would have to take him home and put him in the garage just to keep the peace.

Once a realtor brought a couple to look at some land next to my parents property and my crow dive bombed and chased them back to their vehicle! It was all just fun for Jim, but he gave those folks quite a scare. We never saw the couple again and my parents bought the land!

I could tell many more stories, like hiding house keys, killing snakes, chasing everything out of the garden, going squirrel hunting with me, and how he loved to go for car rides perched atop the steering wheel when I first started driving.

I know they can be a pest and mean, but I miss Jim.

PS, I'm the one in the glasses.

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All I can say is Elmer Keith……

I was in the car sitting in a parking lot of a golf course outside Carlisle, PA, when I looked up and saw a hawk and some little birds in a dogfight. One of the little birds was able to get behind the hawk and start plucking tail feathers from the hawk.

The crow is a fascinating creature.
Always ready to fight, and hold a grudge for generations.

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it just needs more voltage

A nesting pair of red tail hawks live on the mountain behind the State Capitol building. Probably 4th or 5th generation by now - watched them hunt squirrels on the Capitol lawn for years. One day a murder of crows started harassing a red tail sitting in a tall oak waiting on squirrels. In mid air, probably 100 feet off the ground, the red tail flipped over like a fighter jet and slapped the closest crow with both talons. The crow dropped like a rock, the murder flew off, and the red tail flew back to it's hilltop, ignoring the dead body on the lawn.

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Heavily armed old man.

They’re smart enough not to respond to my crow call

Crows have a strangely long memory. One flew into my old truck several years ago and they are now using my new truck for target practice!

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paws for friendship

I'd say half the photos I've got of bobcats were because of crows. I recognize the sound crows make when they're harassing a predator, and when I hear them making that ruckus I run for a window to open and hope for a bobcat to trot though my yard. I can only imagine the cursing that happens under a bobcat's breath as crows announce the bobcat's presence to whatever bobcat prey animal might be around.

When I was perhaps 13 years old I bought a crow call from Herter's. First morning I had it I went outside and started blowing it, within a few minutes it was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie scene, there had to be hundreds of crows all around me. I was actually alarmed at what was happening. Lord only knows what I was saying in crow talk. Oddly enough, that call never called in a crow again - clearly they learned it wasn't a fellow crow making that noise, and they never responded again. Crows are very smart.

Crow1. "What's that?"

Crow2. "From up here it looks like some kid blowing in a crow call."

Crow1. "Gather the murder and we'll fly down and give him some dirty britches."

Crow2. "NICE!! Let's go, boys!"

Next day.

Crow2. "He's whaling on that call again. Shall I get the murder together?"

Crow1. "Nah. Let's show him he's wasted his money."

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Release the Kraken

Very good!

There will be many bis-cu-its for you in heaven

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

Crows, ravens and magpies are really smart.

Among other things, the very seldom ever get hit by cars while most other birds do on a regular basis

We don't have crows here but lots of Ravens, they are very intelligent birds. When they come here to water the other birds leave or stay silent.

I have watched the squirrels spend hours burying nuts and seeds and such in the neighbors yard, Only to see a murder line up at one end of the yard and slowly march across in that line, eating everything they found. They are scary smart. Research has found they can solve multi-step puzzles and use tools to get food. I know people that can't do that.

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The best I can with what I got

Crows and ravens are not only known for their intelligence, but have been mythological symbols for centuries.

"...In modern western culture, crows symbolize death, the afterlife, wisdom, intelligence, adaptability, prescience, fortune, destiny, transformation, and the future. Crow symbolism is both positive and negative, and they’re seen as both good and bad omens depending on where in the world you are"

There is a famous carving of The Raven and the First Men by the late West Coast artist, Bill Reid, in the foyer of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of BC.



And a haunting song about a crow in Schubert's introspective song cycle, "Die Winterreise" (Winter Journey) where the poet is haunted by a crow that has followed him out of town, perhaps to feed on his body(?)

OK, OK, cultural segment over now

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

All of the responses are interesting and spot on from my experiences. Crows seem to be very aware of their surroundings and acute to details.

Once I came home from the eye doctor with a new pair of glasses. Jim (my crow) was hanging out in a row of trees in the back of my parents property. As always I whistled and held my arm out so he could fly down and land. Right on cue Jim flew and landed on my arm, took one look at the new glasses, let out a loud caw, and flew back to the trees. It took him probably the better part of an hour before we made up.

44Guy, as smart as crows are, my experiences with ravens leave me to believe they are on an next level. Very intelligent birds.

vt_shooter, I bought a Herter's crow call at about the same age as you. I even had four crow decoys along with an owl decoy. Had high hopes of becoming a master crow hunter. Didn't turn out how I thought and found the best way for me anyway, was to shoot them at long range when the opportunity arose while hunting groundhogs.

I still have that crow call!

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One more crow story....we've all heard how crows like shiny things and will cashe food and other items they find. Once coming home from Virginia visiting family (Jim always traveled with us) mom and dad discovered they didn't have a house key on them. No problem, as we always kept a spare under the steps in the garage hanging on a nail. When we went to retrieve the key it was not there. Dad gave me a boost to an unlocked window and we were able to get in the house but my sister and I were blamed for not returning the key when using it earlier.

My parents always dabbled in antiques and kept a stack of news papers in the garage for packing. Months after the key incident they were tidying up the garage and when the news papers were moved guess what fell out?

Jim would watch EVERYTHING we did and was always hiding things. I'm sure one day he saw us pull that key out and when we replaced it he determined a new hiding place was in order.

Hopefully my ramblings about Jim have been O.K. Your comments on crows have brought back a lot of fond memories for me.

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Many years ago I watched my entire front lawn completely torn up in 20 minutes! Hundreds of Crows tore it up to get he Grubs that were under the lawn - never knew they were there. Had to treat for Grubs and have the lawn replaced. A very expensive proposition!

Crows are not on my list of fav's!

I saw a bunch of crows make life miserable for a immature Eagle sitting high in a tree by the lake..

Took it for a while but the crows were quite aggressive and the Eagle took off for a more friendly neighborhood.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

Several years ago a crow in Vancouver, who became known as Canuck (of course) rose to fame after stealing a knife from a violent crime scene.

At the time, Audubon ran a page on him:

The Misadventures of Canuck, the World’s Most Infamous Crow

You may have heard of the exploits of Canuck, a hand-raised crow from Vancouver, Canada, that was caught making off with a knife from a crime scene in a McDonalds parking lot earlier this year. The incident was a violent one: A man set fire to his own car and threated the police with a knife. Shots were fired. Afterward, in swept Canuck, plucking the knife from the crime scene and even causing an officer to give chase. Eventually the bird dropped the weapon and avoided any criminal charges...

He disappeared in August 2019, leaving not just his mate, Cassiar, bereft, but also his thousands of followers. He even has a Wikipedia page, which states:

Due to the visibility and uniqueness of Canuck's actions, he became legendary in Vancouver. He was named by CBC viewers as Metro Vancouver's unofficial ambassador in 2018, beating out actor Michael J. Fox with 81% of the final vote.

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)

To my knowledge, Jim never committed any felonies, just misdemeanors.

Hmmm... "Felonies and Misdemeanors".... could be a movie in there somewhere

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"I drank WHAT?" (Socrates)