Box Elder Wildlife Federation

[OldBear]

That's what I used to say when those rascals woke me up at 6am with their gaggle of calls, rounding up the flock, waking up the stragglers from over in the old walnut tree, and getting ready to do whatever they do all day long until they return in the evening to repeat the same noisy gathering.
In fact, I started even cussing the treaty that protects them, since they obviously weren't out on the roadway cleaning up the road kill like they were supposed to be doing, like in the old days.
Made me want to break out the old .22 and follow them to wherever they gaggled all day long, maybe make it so not so many came back at night to wake me up with their gaggle again in the morning.
And then, one day, I watched the "KARATE CROWS" working my front yard!
"Karate Crows"? Yes, I'll explain that one since I'd never met a Karate Crow before either.
Had a half dozen of the rascals out in my front yard, clacking their particular brand of language. Milling around the trees, they'd look up at a tree trunk, jump up and kick the bark, recover, land back on their feet, and peck at something. I watched them for several minutes, considered scaring them away then reconsidered, figured I'd try to find out what they were doing. Maybe they finally went totally stark-raving mad, with all their noise and failure to clean up the roadkill.
After they left, I went out and examined the trees. Most of the loose bark had been stripped off by the Karate-kicks, and was laying on the ground by the trees. Mystery of the sea, what the devil was this all about.
Then, I reached down and picked off a piece of peeling bark that was too large apparently for the Karate Crows to kick off. I flicked it off with my finger, and guess what? A bunch of spiders was lurking under the bark, and there were cocoons carrying unhatched spiders. A regular mess of spiders. The Karate Crows came back for several days, and when they had stripped the loose bark off all the trees they started in on the yard. Don't know what they were harvesting there, but it must have been crow-tasty 'cause they stayed for several days.
So now when the crows wake me up, like this morning, especially the big one calling all the others to get up, start calling, and get to work, I'm not so irritated with them. If they're sustaining themselves on spiders and bugs, then maybe it's because there isn't as much roadkill as there used to be. Or maybe spiders and bugs have more food value. Anyway, I don't resent their early morning reville so much if they're keeping down the creepy crawlers.
Wish they'd get on a better schedule, though.........