Crows aren't friendly or neighborly. They look out for each other but that's where it ends. They routinely steal nestlings and fledglings of small songbirds and feed them to their young. If you care about songbirds in your garden, I wouldn't encourage crows. They do serve a purpose of scaring away hawks but usually they only bother larger hawks like red tails, not smaller ones like coopers or sharp shins. It's the smaller ones that take the songbirds. They will try to eat the food in your garden - they will eat just about anything.

Lol, mustbenuts, you have quite the aviary there! I love the blue jays too but they can be big bullies so they may drive out other birds. I am pretty thrilled about my birds exploits too. I used to have a very old, beat up and rotting out bird house and every year a family of house sparrows would move in and I'd get to watch them hatch and fledge. Well it finally just bit the dust. It was so old and falling apart that it wouldn't hold together anymore. So I replaced it with a beautiful new one. Nothing too fancy but a nice one. I put it out in March just like I had done with the old one. Nothing. 4 years of nothing. Not a single nest ever built. I was heart broken. Well after 5 Michigan winters it doesn't look pristine anymore. Some of the cedar shingles have chipped off and the paint is faded out and guess what...it has a nest in it! I was sitting on the patio the other day and saw a flash of something by it so I turned and looked. There she was, a beautiful yellow finch carrying a twig into the house. Now I'm thrilled!

Here is a link to everything you need to know about Ravens. In fact from what it states they will be having it out with some Falcons very soon. That should be very interesting to watch. http://www.baltimoreravens.com/ To locate a crow roosting area just go out at dust or dawn and record the direction the crows are flying. Do this from more than one location then plot all of the direction onto a map. Where all of the lines cross is their roosting area. Wear boots if you plan on walking around in that woods as the ground could be covered a foot deep with their droppings. People have tried using fireworks at night to drive them off but most times they keep coming back. So think twice before you tempt them into hanging around…..

I hope mama and baby are OK. I hate crows. Just like you Ingrid, I got sick of dead bird parts in my fountain because of them. Luckily, mama and daddy magpies, scrub jays and doves chased them out of my yard on a permanent basis. Their reward for doing that? Fresh, home grown figs! One of the saddest things I saw on my way home from work was a dead adult squirrel laying on its back at the edge of the road. There was a much younger squirrel behind the dead squirrel's head, with its hands underneath the dead squirrel's arms, trying to lift it to safety. The dead squirrel was too big and too heavy for the young squirrel to lift and carry. It could only raise the dead squirrel's shoulders up and down. I still burst out in tears when I think about it. Yes, call me an old softie. On the other hand, when one of those squirrels tries to get my figs, I have a total fit!