Crow Baby Flies the Nest

You may remember the young crow that I was crow sitting recently. He remained in the garden for over a week.

The parents did seem to come and feed him more regularly. We ensured that there was always water and food for him. As well as the usual suet pellets, mealworms, peanuts, sultanas, fat balls and wild bird seed that we put out, we also boiled eggs for him and added cheese and some turkey or chicken.

The lilac tree grows at a very low angle to the ground, so he was able to walk up it and then hop onto a branch of the firethorn tree, which seemed a pretty safe place to spend the night. Although one evening he looked set to roost on the ground so I had to pick him up and place him on his perch!

One day the adult crows turned up with two other young ones, the siblings were reunited. However, since then we have only ever seen one other young one. This other sibling and the parents soon became regular visitors, so it was good to see our young one socialising properly.

Eventually he did fly off with his family. They do return every day to snack and bathe. It is good to see crow baby growing up and seemingly healthy. As of yesterday he still begs his older sibling or his parent to feed him even though he is quite capable of feeding himself.

Young Crow

All day today there has been a young crow fledgling hopping around the garden. The crows don’t often land here because the magpies chase them off.

I got close enough to look at it to make sure there were no obvious injuries. I was worried that the parents weren’t coming down to feed it. So I placed saucers of water all over the garden and put down mealworms, buggy nibbles, sultanas and peanuts in various places.

It did eat some and have a drink. Apparently they do spend a few days out of the nest, but unable to fly. The parents are usually around to look after them though.

As it became dusky I was glad to see that it had managed to get itself onto a low branch and was fast asleep. I will keep an eye out for it and hopefully it will grow into a big strong crow and fly off.