Crow doing a barrel roll!

[Linda Seamans]

Hi Folks,

I saw a facinating bird behavior today and I wonder if any of you have observed it before or have any feedback on it.

 

Shortly after 11:00 am this morning I was driving east on Route 2 in Wilton just west of the Route 4 intersection when I observed two crows flying together over the road toward me (west). Suddenly one of them drew its right wing back and performed a 360 degree barrel roll! It recovered perfectly and then just a few seconds later repeated this maneuver before passing over me. I have never seen this behavior before. My impression was that it was doing it because of the crow that was accompanying it. I looked in Stokes' guide to Bird Behavior but found no reference to it. A brief web search seemed to indicate ravens do this to impress each other.  I can't rule out they were ravens but they seemed to be ordinary crows to me. Do any of you have any thoughts or insight on this? Have any of you observed such antics? Thanks in advance and happy birding!

 

Alan S.

Lisbon, ME

[Jill McElderry-Maxwell]

I have seen crows and ravens doing similar behaviors, including flying upside down briefly, loop de loops, stallouts with dramatic recoveries, etc.  I have always assumed that they are enjoying themselves immensely (which they appear to be), as they are very intelligent birds and part of being intelligent includes an appreciation of play behavior as an adult...

 

Jill McElderry-Maxwell
Bag End Suri Alpacas of ME, LLC - ¡BESAME!
226 Snakeroot Rd
Pittsfield, ME  04967
(207) 660-5276 (cell)
bagen...@roadrunner.com
http://www.bagendsuris.com

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From: Linda Seamans <seaman...@yahoo.com>
To: Maine Birds <maine...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 2, 2012 9:00 PM
Subject: [Maine-birds] Crow doing a barrel roll!

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[Herb Wilson]

Hi,

Here is a paper that may be of interest:

Aerobatic Rolls by Ravens on Santa Cruz Island, California  (DJVU format)
(Auk: Vol. 101, No. 3, July-September, 1984)

You can download a pdf copy at the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (SORA) at http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/index.php

Herb

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Dr. Herb Wilson
Department of Biology
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Colby College
Waterville, ME  04901

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