Crow Surfing
Sep. 29th, 2022 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziThere is a family of crows that lives in the area around the building in which I work. I've been told by one of the building engineers that they build a nest on the roof every year. It's a pain for the engineers, because the crows tend to make a fuss if anyone goes near it to do work up there.
From my office window, I can see a big pole that supports some power lines. It's basically a tall metal pole with four pairs of 'arms' on it that each support one cable. Birds like to perch on it and the power lines.
The other day, I happened to look out the window as the crow family came flying up to the pole. They all landed on the upper two pairs of arms. There was a moderately strong, steady wind blowing. A moment later, one of the crows hopped off one of the lower arms into the wind. It angled its head upward and kept its wings spread, catching the wind and lifting up a little, then angled downward and dropped a little bit before catching the wind again. While it wasn't exactly hovering, it was staying in pretty much the same place for a bit. After doing that for a little bit, it flapped its wings and circled around to land on pole again.
I've seen a crow do that out there a couple times in the past and it makes me think they're doing it for fun. What made this time different was that, after the first one did it, one of the other crows hopped off the pole and tried doing it too. This one was more clumsy about it and it took a bit of flapping and correcting until it started to get the hang of it. Soon it returned to the pole and a third crow clumsily tried its hand at it. They all took off and flew away after that.
Honestly, it looked like the first crow was teaching the others how to wind surf.
From my office window, I can see a big pole that supports some power lines. It's basically a tall metal pole with four pairs of 'arms' on it that each support one cable. Birds like to perch on it and the power lines.
The other day, I happened to look out the window as the crow family came flying up to the pole. They all landed on the upper two pairs of arms. There was a moderately strong, steady wind blowing. A moment later, one of the crows hopped off one of the lower arms into the wind. It angled its head upward and kept its wings spread, catching the wind and lifting up a little, then angled downward and dropped a little bit before catching the wind again. While it wasn't exactly hovering, it was staying in pretty much the same place for a bit. After doing that for a little bit, it flapped its wings and circled around to land on pole again.
I've seen a crow do that out there a couple times in the past and it makes me think they're doing it for fun. What made this time different was that, after the first one did it, one of the other crows hopped off the pole and tried doing it too. This one was more clumsy about it and it took a bit of flapping and correcting until it started to get the hang of it. Soon it returned to the pole and a third crow clumsily tried its hand at it. They all took off and flew away after that.
Honestly, it looked like the first crow was teaching the others how to wind surf.