This time of the year everybody is crazy about walnuts. We have many walnut trees around our residential blocks and in the park and it is free to pick the nuts. Makes me wonder why on earth the price of the nuts in the shops are so high. Anyhow, it is not just the humans who take advantage of free food, Simon the squirrel is stashing walnuts for the winter and each day climbs countless times to pick the walnuts and to carry to his secret place. But this will be another story for another post.
This post is about the crows, who are also in competition who can pinch the nut first.
I will start with few pics I took in the weekend. I've seen them crows crashing the nuts either with their strong beaks or using more sophisticated methods. Sometimes they will just drop it from above on the concrete floor or asphalt. The walnut may not crack so easily, so the bird will pick it up and try again and again until it is ready to open.
This time the crow hopped on the lamp post, walnut in the beak.
Then firmly gripping with one leg, tried to peck.
But it is not easy to keep the balance.
Still holding and balancing...
And... not for long, the walnut dropped.
What happened next I did not capture. The crow landed, pick it up and flew away. Sure enough to find better place and not to be disturbed.
The above images are in black and white, because I got wrong settings and that day my images turned blue. My eyes are cheating on me and without my spectacles I chose tungsten light instead of daylight. So, I did not want to disregard the photos and the only solution was to turned them in black and white.
Now, some more images of crows with nuts from other days.
This is what I usually see, a crow walking with nut in the beak. Typical autumn picture.
And another one, where the crow successfully cracked the nut.
If you have time to watch them, you will be surprised how resourceful the crows are. I witness though a crow pecking on a baby bird who I thought was a dove. Really gruesome, but alas this is what it is.
Hope you enjoyed my photos. Until next time.
Happy birding!
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