Crow Court?

[BertRoot]

Anyone heard of this phenomenon? I have searched google for ages trying to find some info on it. I was chatting to Tasseltine here before and he was saying that usually people come across them rarely and it seems to be that a group of crows will circle another crow and start 'crow'ing at it and after a eriod of time of the crows shouting at the one in the middle they all dive on and beat it to death.

Is he shitting me or what? Sounds very plausible.

[Mr Olympia]

lol...I thought the title said 'Crown Court' assuming you was some advice after being a naughty lad...

[danthescan]

You need to get out more Bert.

[Thrush]

Crows are moody birds, It wouldn't suprise me if this happened. I remember seeing one in greenwich flying down to tuck into a Pigeon, although this isn't unusual, these birds are evil. On Blackheath they all hang around together checking out the local tallent.

Yes I have been drinking.

[Ganty]

I've tried to find something more for you Bert, but just found a load of interesting yet irrelevant info on how good they are at making tools (Very good, apparently)

[maverick_15]

I believe (and this could be bollocks) that the literary noun for crows is a 'murder' because they do what you've described except I think it's more likely to be a dying crow that they finish off. I'm not sure though if that's a folktale or not but it might give you something to look further from...

[maverick_15]

I did a search on origin "murder of crows" and found a discussion about it where someone provided the following information:

A ‘murder’ of crows is based on the persistent but fallacious folk tale that crows form tribunals to judge and punish the bad behavior of a member of the flock. If the verdict goes against the defendant, that bird is killed (murdered) by the flock. The basis in fact is probably that occasionally crows will kill a dying crow who doesn’t belong in their territory or much more commonly feed on carcasses of dead crows. Also, both crows and ravens are associated with battlefields, medieval hospitals, execut1on sites and cemeteries (because they scavenged on human remains). In England, a tombstone is sometimes called a ravenstone.

along with a (now dead) link.

Also this:

In the book, An Exaltation of Larks , by James Lipton, a number of crows together is called, a murder of crows. This seems to be a harsh reminder that crows can be cruel. They after all are wild animals and have learned survival tactics. Most of us have observed crows feeding on carrion on the highways. They don't stop with just the dead and dying but will attack nest of birds to feed on eggs and the young and will also attack small animals. In fact, they will aggressively attack large animals as well (Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds serves as a reminder that the crow can be quite aggressive>.

Again, from the search results.

[Andy Poobar]

I have seen them do it with large dirds of preym, but never with another crow.

Seams to be if they invade the area of the crows nest they don;t like it that much!

[Hybrid]

Dunno about the court thing, but I can tell you that if you shoot one and it isn't a clean kill, it starts making a strange noise n suddenly there's loads of them, like a scene from "The Birds" movie! spooky n un-nerving. dunno if they would have finished it off either, cos my cat is way too quick and even tho the crow was about the same size as my cat, it still managed to have it off on its toes with it.

[taff]

It is a thing they do when either a member of there flock of crows is eiter injured or dying they will gather and make 1 hell off a noise and eventualy kill it. seen it loads of times also when you shoot a crow and leave it to die on its own as you didnt get a kill shot first go.