i had black birds nesting in my back garden.they come back every year.their eggs hatched and then i saw a crow fly off with one of the babys,the nest is now empty and i havent seen the male or female adults for two days.have they gone somewhere else to nest?
Answers:
Crows are omnivores not carnivores contrary to the second answer.
However like magpies they will steal eggs and very young chicks from unguarded nests.They don't usually put up much of a fight if challenged though-last year 1 got chased off by the blackbird hen who nests in my garden even though she was about a 3rd of the crows size.
Blackbirds can rear 3 or sometimes even 4 broods a year,usually using a different nest each time.They ALWAYS switch nests if the nest gets robbed so they are probably trying elsewhere.
They may nest in your garden again next year or maybe even later this year though so don't panic.
WOW I dont know
Crows are carnivorous and therefore eat meat: they may well be attracted to baby birds.
Nature is sometime cruel!!
Rik
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Crows are terrible nest robbers. You have probably seen smaller birds teaming up to chase crows and drive them off. That's why; they will eat eggs and babies. One year they got the robins at my sister's place. Once that happened, the robins never nested in that site again. Squirrels will nest rob too.
Most birds will try to raise another clutch if the first one fails/is eaten. Some species can raise two or three clutches in a season. It's pretty early on; your blackbirds are probablt trying again in another spot.
Ye Blackbirds are pretty well shafted, unless someone shafts the crows.
Similarly, I've watched a cat return - three years on the trot - to inspect a Blackbirds nest, untill the chicks were plump to the point of 'Just So', when the cat helped itself.
Crows. Carnivours / Omnivours ? I'd probably go with Omnivouristic, Predatory Scavengers. They'll eat flesh from the dead or weak. Eat from anything much that affords 'meat' without fighting back much. Can't hate them for that, 'mind. They're just one of uk's last natural 'vultures'.
But, yeah; They'll have that nest marked down now and will even teach their inevitable offspring where to find it.
Thing is; Either the crows will eat that line of Blackbird out or existance (Eat all chicks till the parents die and stop trying to promulgate their genes). Or something will befall the crows and halt their predations.
But, if the latter, those none too clued up on how to hide a nest, Blackbirds will keep nesting where they can be found. And pass That gene onto their own, similarly doomed, progeny ~ if they ever get to raise any.
But then, should we factor in crow densities in your local Vs Blackbird depletions .? And how about cats?
See what a can of worms you've opened?
Try reading " The Balance of Nature ", by George Abbey. Great old book. If nothing else it'll get ye away from the screen for a while ;-)
Crows are predators and scavengers, and will eat anything they can subdue. That said, the bulk of their diet consists of waste grain in winter, and earthworms and other terrestrial invertebrates in the spring and summer. Crows will eat eggs and nestlings of songbirds, and in some areas might have a significant impact of a local population of birds. Far more likely, however, is that crows are but one of a host of species preying on the "desirable" wildlife, and removing crows will make no change in the end result (that of most of the young birds/eggs being eaten).
crows eat all baby birds.
yes all corvids will do that especially if their food source is scarce! its the cruel way of the world. the adult blackbirds will have gone off to find somewhere safer to nest.
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