Blackie the crow grows up.

What happens when a Northwestern Crow takes the wrong migration north and breeds with an American Crow in Northern Ontario? The result is a new language of mumbling crows.

The Northwestern Crow flew north 5 years ago and STAYED! He chose an American crow as his mate and decided the pickings were good all year round in my compost pile so he didn't migrate south in the fall. The first year there was two separate languages, Northwestern mumbling (which I interpreted as Spanish) and typical American Crow caws. Since then the baby crows have made there own adjustments and the clan now speaks in mumbles, caws and growls.

This is the 6th batch of babies. Typically, only the current years babies will stay over winter with the parents and then migrate the second winter to mate. In the spring, any babies that have survived over winter migration collect in the tree at the end of the driveway and have a welcoming party for about a week. I believe there were over 40 crows this spring from the original pairing of 2.

The family now totals 8. The 2 adult breeding pair, the 2 young from last year, 3 babies reared by the clan and Blackie the baby crow that I hand raised.

This is Blackie the crow's mother having lunch.





Here is Blackie the crow, who no longer has to be spoon fed every hour. YEAH!

He checks out the table in case I put something there and then eats fresh corn off the ground. He no longer wants me near him when he eats but comes to the house and screams if he is really hungry. He knows the difference between meat and carbs and will demand meat for supper refusing anything else. :(



Pam

Snowbound

No...it's not snowing here (but that can happen any time of year). I'm doing a small watercolour sketch to fit into a solid rock frame. 3.5 x 5"

Here is snowbound step 1:


It is part of the Timmins History series I am working on.

Blackie the Crows family are trying to teach the young ones to get small crab apples off the tree. The young crows don't quite get it.



And I'll be working on bigger projects so keep watching.

Pam

Canadian, Please

I just had to share this with all the Canadian viewers. :)



Pam

Black the crow learns to bathe.

It has been almost one month since I took on the task of feeding an abandoned baby crow. A huge task involving feeding every hour, teaching him to be afraid of the cat, and keeping the rest of his family close by with food for them all. His flying abilities improve as his tail feathers grow out, but it still has another inch of growth before he has complete flight control.

He now spends all his time with his crow family forcing me to call the whole family in to feed him. Blackie is indistinguishable from his siblings until he flies down to me. I still feed him every 1 1/2 - 2 hours during daylight hours but he takes 1/2 his food off the ground and only wants spoon feeding when really hungry.

This video was taken about a week ago at Blackie's first bath. He has learned to drink and play in the lasagna pan when hot but he must now be learning to bathe elsewhere with his family.




And in a tree:

Pam

Blackie, One Week Later

Blackie has made significant leaps in learning and flight over the last week. Gone is the baby attitude. He is learning to fly and his tail feathers are longer. He still needs food to be shoveled in his beak but I am training him to take food off the ground.

In the latest video, you will see he spends his time in the tree tops at the level of the other crows. The other crows aren't happy with him but they will have to sort that out themselves. Blackie flies down from the tallest tree to a smaller tree beside me, then dives down to me to eat. I had to stop the video to grab the food. Immediate reinforcement (food) of good behaviour is the way I'm training him.


Pam

Ticketmaster Video Blog

I decided to make a video blog while I worked on Ticketmaster, the sketch of Puss N'Boots from Rainbow Stables, here in Timmins, Ontario, Canada.



Watch for more art video blogs.

Pam