Carrion Crow predating a rabbit (1 Viewer)

Hello

First I'll appologise for posting a message regarding a crow.

Sorry (but it was certainly acting like a bird of prey).

Yesterday, as I sat drinking some coffee and watching the grazing pasture outside one of the place's I work from (in Suffolk) I happened to see a Carrion Crow fly up and over the perimeter fenceline then down along the fence for about 20ft. What arroused my attention was a brown blob that seemed to be running in the same direction along the ground.

After a very brief chase the crow alighted and started stabbing at something. At this point I went out to get my bin's and came back in to see the crow stabbing at the body of a young rabbit it had caught. The rabbit tried to get away briefly but was repeatedly stabbed until dead. (No - I wasn't able to save it - in the same way as I am not able to save voles from Barn Owls etc...)

After a little while the crow flew off with the rabbit.

Is this common behaviour for a Carrion Crow?

Regards

I was once over in the east coast of scotland at Aberlady Bay and saw a peregrine hitting a godwit way up ..the godwit fell to the ground and before it could collect its prize about 6 or 7 crows moved in ..the godwit couldnt fly but one crow in particular kept grabbing it by the neck and dragging it towards a puddle where it drowned the godwit while the other crows kept the peregrine at bay ..so i would reckon crows can be a very nast bunch and what you witnessed although new behaviour to yourself ..would be quite common ..especially if the bird hadnt eaten in a while

Very interesting. Don't know anything about carrion crows, but I saw a Common Raven (don't know if you guys call it something else) attack a young California Ground Squirrel. It did something similar, restraining it with its feet, attacking with it's beak. However, I wouldn't call it stabbing, more like pounding. This one got lucky though. The mother of the squirrel attacked the raven, biting and clawing at it. It let the baby go, and when we next saw it it had a small white scar one its cheek. However, the raven, eve resourceful, croaked to a nearby raven. They tried to flush the squirrels by reaching down the holes, but we thought the squirrels had won their safety, and we frightened the ravens off. There were a lot of black feathers with some fur and blood at the battlescene.

A few years ago I was at work and heard a lot of commotion outside, I walked out and scared off three crows that were attacking a dove. The dove was stunned with some had some feathers missing off his head. I picked him up and gave him water and put him in a cardboard box.
A couple of hours later I checked up on him and released him to escape another day.

Once had a pet Raven. One wing was shot off. I fed it canned cat food. After a bit it would hop around the yard making a pest of itself. One fine day my cat came out of the field with a mouse. The raven lunged the cat which dropped its quarry and the raven swallowed it whole. Well for weeks the cat brought that bird mice. Then one day I found a pile of black feathers. was that cat fattening up the bird..

saw a family party of Carrion Crow (2ads, three well-grown young) form a loose circle around a young Grey Squirrel, the ads were seemingly testing the squirrels mettle by tugging it's tail whilst the young hopped around giving quite high-pitched, raucous calls ... eventually, what I took to be the male crow (marginally larger and 'beefier' than the other ad) walloped the squirrel on the top of the head a couple of times sending it into spasms, both ads then proceeded to pull tufts of fur from the squirrel as if plucking it, at which point the youngsters went beserk with the excitement ... then all of a sudden the squirrel did a 180 degree roll and legged it at a rate of knots ... also seen one of this pair (which basically ruled the postage stamp sized park) kill, pluck (mantle feathers), and eat a sickly pigeon with zero fight in it ... a particularly opportunistic pair?