A week ago I was thrilled to see a raven “herding” a red-tailed hawk into my Oakland neighborhood. The raven had claimed the airspace over the Bloomfield side of the East Busway and was making the hawk fly back to where he came from. No red-tails welcome here!
We have so few ravens in Pittsburgh that I rarely see this kind of action but if I lived in California, as Vance Crofoot does, I’d have a lot of opportunities to watch raven territorial behavior against predators and other ravens.
In this three minute video you’ll see a raven defending his territory against an intruding male. It’s amazing that both birds posture and make soft sounds rather than loud raucous noises.
You’ll also learn:
The size of a raven’s territory.
How you can tell which raven lost the confrontation.
If you think you can’t recognize birds by song I guarantee there is one whose voice you know. “Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw!” the American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).
Crows are especially vocal when they see a predator. If you hear this, look for the owl!
And there’s the Double Short Caw that I often hear in summer. (I have not found a recording of it.)
Caw-Caw. Caw-Caw. Caw-Caw.
Double Short Caw. A series of caws delivered in pairs, so that the interval within a pair is smaller than between pairs. Often associated with territorial bouts, Countercawing, directed out of the territory, and particularly with the beginning of chasing bouts. Function as call-to-arms vocalizations for family members.
American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) are very intelligent and thrive on solving problems, especially when it comes to food. Those who enjoy feeding crows sometimes provide them with brain teasers in the form of puzzle feeders.
Outside of the breeding season, @Crows_are_SkyCats in Seattle, Washington offers puzzle feeders for crows, young and old. When this video was recorded in February 2022 a group of young crows, members of Seattle’s winter crow flock, stopped by frequently to figure out how to get food from the spinning red containers.
Watch how long it took them to solve the puzzle. These crows are working for kibble.
Laurel and Hardy here have had several tries with this puzzle and finally found a repeatable solution. They worked on this puzzle for 20 minutes in this session. The solution they landed on is physically awkward, but once they landed on it, they stuck with it. I’m experimenting with a way to make it more comfortable to reach & spin.
Murder of crows at staging area in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, 22 Oct 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
23 October 2025
Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock is growing day by day to reach its maximum size in late December / early January. As the murder grows they change their evening pathways and foil my attempt to count them.
For a while they’ve been staging in mature trees in Shadyside, then flying west after sunset to an unknown location. But they’ve also spent a couple of evenings staging on my building’s roof and on Cathedral Mansions.
Yesterday I went to Shadyside at 5:30pm to watch them come into the trees. At first each tree had 15 crows, then 20, then 30, then … More crows per tree and more trees with crows.
Murder of crows at pre-roost in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, 22 Oct 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)Murder of crows at pre-roost in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, 22 Oct 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
They were loud and they were probably annoying the neighbors. Fortunately their visit was temporary. At sunset they departed for points west.
Seven years ago Pittsburgh’s growing murder of crows roosted on Pitt’s campus near the Cathedral of Learning and of course they caused trouble. Crows can’t help it.
Here’s more on crow trouble at home and abroad in a vintage article from 2018.
American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) will eat almost anything from worms, eggs and frogs to small birds and mammals, carrion and discarded human food. The crow pictured above has found a Christmas cookie. Num num.
People who feed small birds often find they are also feeding crows. In 2021 Anthony Abraham saw a video of a puzzle feeder for wild parrots and decided to try it on his local crows in California. Watch how long it took the crows to try the puzzle. It was easy once they got accustomed to it.
Crows heading for the roost at dusk in Pittsburgh (photo by Kate St. John)
13 October 2025
My sixth floor windows are a good place to watch birds in flight. Last month I saw chimney swifts diving into Cathedral Mansions chimney (see chimney swifts video in 2020). This month Pittsburgh’s growing winter crow flock flies past my window on their way to the roost.
They’re Back!!!!
On Saturday 10 October I counted 3,000 crows but was too busy counting to take pictures.
Last night I captured lots of video which I stitched together for a minute+ of crows in flight. Crow fans will watch the whole thing but most of you will want to ditch out early without watching every single crow.
12-Oct-2025 video by Kate St. John
Several times in the video: Wondering why a single crow wheels, turns, and heads backward and down? He’s seen his buddies on the roof next door and wants to join them.
For now the crows are roosting somewhere near Pitt but as their numbers grow to 10,000 or 20,000 they’ll wear out their welcome and be urged to “move along” and change the roost. When that happens they won’t fly past my building anymore. The last few days have been a rare opportunity to count crows outside my window.
October is nut season and the blue jays are busy. We see them flying back and forth on the same route all day long on. What are they doing?
At this time of year blue jays eat acorns from the treetops and carry many more in their gular sacks and beaks to cache at home for the winter. They always go overboard and cache more than they’ll ever eat. So, unintentionally, blue jays are planting trees.
Blue jay parents and grown kids all contribute to storing food in their home territory. Here are some cool facts about how and why they do this. (information is from Birds of the World)
Blue jays are omnivores but during oak mast season their diet becomes 67% acorns.
They also prefer to gather acorns on the tree, versus on the ground.
Each time they fly home they usually carry 1-5 acorns or up to 15 beechnuts, depending on size.
To carry the nuts, they store 2-3 in their distended throat and anterior esophagus + one in mouth + one at bill-tip. The blue jay pictured above has a bulging throat but the acorn in his mouth is too large for him to carry one in his bill-tip.
“Each individual adult probably harvests and eats or caches several thousand acorns, beechnuts, hazelnuts, hickory nuts, or other hard mast each autumn.
This tendency may account for the rapid postglacial dispersal of oaks.” — Birds of the World
The 9-minute video below shows blue jay caching behavior and explains how blue jays probably plant more trees than squirrels!
Common ravens (Corvus corax) mate for life and stay together year round on their territory, defending it against other ravens. Since they typically live 10 to 15 years or as much as 23 years in the wild, the pair has lots of opportunity to strengthen their pair bond including aerial displays and strutting on the ground. Less often seen is their quiet way of communicating affection.
Someone ate crow near Heinz Chapel, 22 August 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
23 August 2025
This week someone ate crow near the Cathedral of Learning. I usually find pigeon feathers but yesterday I found a pile of crow feathers under a tree near Heinz Chapel. Who would have perched in a tree to eat crow? My guess is a red-tailed hawk. The peregrines prefer to eat high up on the Cathedral when they’re this close to home.
In other news, late summer flowers are blooming and late summer bugs are busy.
These gorgeous flowers are the reason why Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica) was imported as an ornamental plant. (Hmmm, the scientific name has changed?)
Japanese knotweed in bloom, 17 August 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Up close Indian tobacco (Lobelia inflata) shows tiny dots on the edges of its leaves, below.
Wikipedia explains: The plant is called Indian tobacco because Native Americans chewed and smoked the leaves and used it for respiratory and muscle disorders, as a purgative, and as a ceremonial medicine. Its purgative property gave it a second name: puke weed. “Consuming lobelia causes adverse effects, which may include sweating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, tremors, rapid heartbeat, mental confusion, convulsions, hypothermia, coma, or possibly death. The root is toxic and can be fatal if eaten.”
Indian tobacco, Frick Park, 18 August 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Ragweed (Ambrosia sp) was getting ready to bloom this week. Soon it will open and scatter its copious pollen on the wind. Maybe it has already but my nose never tells me. I am not allergic to ragweed, but don’t get me near hay.
Ragweed almost ready to bloom, 17 August 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Spittle bugs are very busy lately. Why was this yellow jacket sipping from the spittle? Or was she sipping plant juices? Or was she eating the bugs?
Yellow jacket ?sipping? at a spittlebug site, 17 August 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
In summer 2023 when Pittsburgh had a spotted lanternfly plague, this building was one of the best places to find an infestation. Back then it was creepy how many lanternflies crawled up the foundation. This year the number is low. Only 8 in this photo. Click here to see them circled.
Spotted lanternflies climbing a building near Herrs Island, 17 August 2025 (photo by Kate St. John)
Ravens are omnivores whose varied diet includes roadkill, rodents, grasshoppers and the nestlings of smaller birds. Since ravens are the largest “songbird” all the smaller birds mob ravens. Ravens in turn mob hawks.
Watch how adult ravens keep the world safe for their youngsters in this video by Vance Crofoot.
