Are you trying to spot an owl? Whether you are in the woods or in your backyard, the call of an owl is distinctive, but trying to spot an owl can be tricky, especially with their camouflage. However, crows can actually help you spot an owl.
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Check out this video to see how:
In the video, crows caw and mob a tree. Clearly something has them upset. After further examination, you can see two great horned owls sitting in the tree. They blend in very well with the bark, but to the crows, who have a reason to be afraid of the owls, they’re sounding the alarm.
The video comes from Dispatches From the Forest, the Instagram account of a podcast.
This behavior is appropriately called mobbing. A large number of crows act aggressively towards a predator to drive it from a nest or area.
The most basic reason for this interaction is that crows are the prey of owls. Like a cat and mouse or shark and fish, the two animals are not fans of one another.
Studies into mobbing behavior found that crows that participated in the act had a lower risk of ending up as a meal for an owl. While birds that avoided the tactic ended up being prey.
So they’re in part warning and protecting each other. But some other research shows that crows may do this to annoy owls during the day and keep them awake.
“While there does not appear to be a definitive answer among the scientific community about why crows expend energy mobbing owls, at any time other than during the breeding season when they are protecting their young, the prevailing theory is that crows have an innate dislike of owls and use their daylight advantage to torment their largest predator,” says a blog post from Carleton College.
What do you think? Are the crows initially trying to torment these owls?
