Towheeblog

Ask a cockatoo…as they flip your lid.

We should no longer be surprised that birds have our man-made world figured out. Gulls all over the world have been stealing food from human hands for decades. I watched ravens on a California beach open a back-pack and drag stuff out…elsewhere they ripped open an unguarded bag of chips, which they ate from, leaving the rest for the gulls. Invasive parrots in San Francisco have trained peope to feed them, in violation of city ordinance. Numerous species use nest boxes, or somebody’s old coat on a hook for nesting. Bridges, stadia, roof over-hangs are valued by swallows and other species while swifts prefer chimneys over hard-to-find hollow trees. At freeway rest stops here in the west you can see Brewer’s Blackbirds picking insect pizza from truck grills and tires on summer days. In London it was not uncommon to see rock pigeons riding surface trains, finding goodies beneath the seats, then getting off at the chosen stop on the line. Cathedrals in Europe are often used fvor nestig and hunting by Common Kestrels and Black Redstarts.
I once saw the latter sixty feet up the side of Chartres Cathedral in late December, finding a snack.