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Toodle pip!

We toss out scraps for the crows here…saw one yesterday flying away with a hot dog :+)

Toodle pip…

Now I want to go re watch Red Dwarf.

Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back in the morning.

Crows and ravens give me the willies. One look at those beaks and you know instantly that they evolved specifically to pluck out human eyeballs.

What Steve said.
See also: http://www.bartleby.com/101/380.html

I must confess: I have never seen a crow, rook, or raven—and recognized it as such. Buzzards and vultures, though—too much.

Deb HH – I think the Turkey Vulture ought to be the official state bird of NJ. We have zillions of them, and we need every one to help eat all the roadkill deer.

Crows we have, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a raven, though I hear that they are moving into our area. Rooks? Only rooks I’ve ever seen are on a chessboard. I think the bird is a EU critter.

Steve – you sound like a Terry Pratchett fan. Death of Rats and his raven pal Quoth. [ I mean, what else would you name a raven, right? ]

I’m friends with the Tower’s Ravenmaster on FB, and he’s quite the fan, not surprisingly. I like them, myself. Smart creatures!

I always think of crows as the S-10 version of the Rook.

Zat a Lexus Corvid?

In high school, many years ago, I knew a kid who used the expression “rooked” for “stole,” e.g., “Somebody rooked the wood.” Never heard that expression since. Was it because rooks are known for stealing shiny objects, as crows are? (“Somebody crowed the wood” doesn’t have the same ring, somehow.)

I’ve heard the word rook used to mean cheat — He rooked me.

@wolf’s + ric, I recall the same. I grew up north of Boston.

@wolf’s + ric + DurnedY: same, here. My brother used the term a lot (in Wisconsin).

In grade school, we had a sort-of pet crow. It used to fly around just outside the playground area fence, then sit and hop and swoop and caw at us until we tossed over bits of our lunch (which we saved to toss to the crow, of course).

Oh, and rooks do not seem to inhabit the US, so apparently the American Crow which, per wiki, hang around in families of up to 15 individuals, is more sociable than the Euro types.

Also, the way I differentiate crows from ravens is by my initial reaction. If I think/say “wow, that bird is BIG”, it’s a crow. If I think/say “OMG THAT BIRD IS HUGE!”, it’s a raven. 🙂

How come no one has mentioned that a bunch of crows are called a murder of crows? Sort of a cool name. 🙂

Being rooked was common parlance in the forests of east Texas too.

I was told, by my elders who bullshitted brilliantly, that for a crow to talk you had to split its tongue.

They also told me that if I put salt on a bird’s tail I could catch it. I was more successful with a bushel basket and a string.

AliceH “OMG THAT BIRD IS HUGE!” – You got that right! We had Ravens in the Mojave when I was out there. I referred to them as crows on steroids because they were about 50% larger! A good sized crow is maybe 12 inches tall (?), these buggers had to stand 18! Of course, we had any number of odd animals out there, even burrowing owls.

The next large black cat I adopt, then, will be known as Rook, Crow, or Raven, depending on how big he is!

Maine vultures.
Consider “the Morrigan” is a crow, not a vulture.