looduskalender.ee

 

 

Until their breeding time we meet crows moving around in groups. In the web camera we see them at the white-tailed eagles feeding ground together with ravens. In cities they keep company with jackdaws; they seem to be many, and so they are.

 

In some winters up to three hundred thousand hooded crows have been counted in Estonia. In very round numbers about a hundred thousand breed here in spring, or fifty thousand pairs. For wintering birds arrived from Lapland and north-western Russia, and soon they will start the journey to the homelands. The birds nesting here fly a little southwards for winter where food is easier to get, but it is no rule. City crows migrate to a lesser extent than the inhabitants of cultivated landscapes. The smart urban birds know their home surroundings so well that they don’t fear starvation, won’t spend energy on migration, and the best nesting spots are known to the alert birds. The hooded crow pair builds a new twig and stick nest each spring.