Phase one success

[Julia Clark]

Hello All,

I have (FINALLY) deployed my crowbox and I want to share progress and observations so far.

We are currently on day 6 of week 1 of phase 1. 

(background)

I have a well-established small crow community that visits my house daily. I started feeding them two years ago, so I have at least 2 generations that now claim my home as their territory. They are extremely comfortable in our yard and will often come to see my husband and I just to say hello. They also bring me gifts from time to time.

There is an extremely large murder of adolescents that hang out with a large group of adolescent magpies that I often feed in a different location very close to home, and many of those birds also know where I live.

Days 1 and 2 saw at least 4 adolescent magpies arrive at my home (out of the blue, they haven't visited in a few months) who had very little issue examining the box and taking the treats. My crow family was definitely wary at first, but they observed the magpies eating without issue, and at the end of day 2 I had at least one adolescent crow sit on the box to examine it.

Days 3-6 have been extremely busy. The basket is usually empty about an hour and a half after the first corvid arrives. 

The crows figured out that the magpies were coming before them to eat, so they moved up their usual feeding time almost 2 hours to get first dibs. It's mostly the adolescent crows that have been eating from the box, but today (day 6) saw 2-3 of my regular adults eating from the box multiple times. The magpies are annoyed that the crows have started chasing them off the box, so they have become more sneaky and are waiting until the crows leave before they come and eat, rather than coming at the same time.

I'm so pleased with the quick progress that I feel I can switch to phase two pretty soon. The adolescent magpies have sped up this process way more than I expected because of their willingness to try new things quickly. I'm thinking maybe 2 more days on phase 1, and then will move to phase 2. Looking forward to updating you all!

[Stephen Chasey]

Congrats on the rapid progress! Sounds very promising so far.

If you get any videos or pics of the interactions, please share :)

[J to the ROC]

I'm attaching a few videos of crows and magpies on the box eating in phase 1. The camera being used is my other bird feeder that usually has seeds for songbirds. (It's currently empty to encourage corvids on the crowbox) please ignore the dirty lens, it will be clean in other later videos

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[J to the ROC]

[J to the ROC]

video 3 of 3

[Stephen Chasey]

Wow! Looks like you have quite a crowd of crows and magpies. Very nice that you have audio as well.