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UPDATE: After surviving the night, pigeon has now died.
Morag our Trust secretary brought a wood pigeon squab to me this evening. It had been attacked by a Crow and has much of the skin torn from it's back. Once again one of my favourite birds has fallen victim to the Crows.
Have given it some pain killer anti- inflammatory, and covered the back with anti bacterial cream. This is pretty much all I can do right now. Looks like it has been grabbed from the nest.
The two river duckling broods have all been taken by the Crows and Black backed gulls, but no young birds are safe from the Hoodie Crows.
This evening I think Gluey our Cygnet may have spotted the Crow that attacked him when only a few days old.
The family were heading up stream to Merryton bridge with Penny in the lead followed closely by Gluey.
He stopped and stared at a hoodie Crow close by, I am certain he knew it was the thing that attacked him and maybe even the one that killed his sibling.
He will never forget or be attacked again, and no doubt will always be on guard from this species. Sequence of pics shows the recognition.
Today I watched an interesting episode in the life of a Black-backed gull.
These are one of the most powerful predatory birds on the coast, and capable of taking and eating most other species if they want to, including Cygnets up to 3 weeks old. I have seen one take a fully grown duck a few years back.
This episode involved a black back finding a dead flounder and trying to soften it up to eat, but being pressured by a Hoodie crow and a young Herring gull.
The end result was the black back eating the whole flounder in one go ! Sequence of pics tells the story.
The crop on a black back Gull is enormous and basically encircles the entire neck, consuming a whole fish or eel is no problem to the black back !
Another fascinating episode of the River Nairn wildlife !
