Roland

This is Roland.

He's a very handsome fish crow, one of a pair that is nesting in the tree behind our house.

I had recently read an article that crows, besides being very intelligent, have very long memories that they hand on to other crows.

The researcher discovered this the hard way.  Five years after he had trapped, banded, and released crows for one study, he returned to an area a few miles away.

 All the crows hated him.  Not other humans, him specifically, and none of them were crows that he had personally insulted by banding them.



It occurred to me that this probably worked in reverse, so I decided to try to "tame" Roland.

Now, I don't want to tame him in the sense that he'll come perch on my arm when I call!

  I have Mike for that.


I just thought it would be neat to have a crow that I was friendly with.

This is what I did:  whenever I saw Roland hanging about, I made eye contact, then went in and got a bit of food (usually out of the trash).

I came out, made eye contact again, and then set the treat on the driveway.  Then I went back in the house and stood by the window where he could see me watching him.

After a week, I watched from outside at a respectful distance.

It's only been two weeks, but three delightful things happened.

Roland has started softly calling to me when I'm outside to let me know he's there.

He also followed me on a walk through the nearby woods.


And Roland brought his mate to meet me.  She was totally not interested and flew away as if to say, "Roland!  You and your weird hobbies!  Taming a human is crazy!"

If you try this, crows are omnivores, but remember never to feed a bird chocolate or avocado.