Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Weaver]

Thomas was out in the field doing his hunting and a hooded crow swooped on him and chased him off; he ran straight back to the house. Have never seen that before! Why did that happen? Trying to steal Thomas’s (assumed) prey from him perhaps?

[burakkucat]

Or was there a baby hooded crow to which Thomas was getting too close?

[kitz]

I was about to suggest if he may have been near a nest.    We have Herring gulls that will dive bomb anything -including humans that get too close to their nest.  Several years ago,  gulls had built a nest between the 2 chimney stacks of the houses at the back of mine.
Once the chicks had reached a certain stage of maturity (they were starting to take an interest in outside of the nest) and briefly venturing on to the ridge tiles, the gulls became very protective of the surrounding area. 

My next door neighbour used to wear a hard hat to go into his garden and even my cats avoided the bottom LH side of my garden or they would swoop. I've had them go for me in the past just for getting out of the car on my drive and walking to my front door.   Those beasts are scary when they do swoop and believe me they have sharp beaks known to draw blood on many a time on people simply walking down the street.   I'm certain Ive mentioned before on here about how territorial they can be and how even the postman refused to deliver mail to certain houses because of them.   They are quite prone to calling for backup and before you know it, you may be victim of 6 or more gulls attacking you.

My older cat male remembers that year and is way more wary of them, but my slightly younger girl mustn't have experienced that particular year... as I think I may have also mentioned on here, when I was able, how I used to take both of my cats walkies on field.  Zigs had been very poorly after a recent bad triaditis flare, and it was his first walkies out for a while and he must have got too near their area of another nest and a gull started dive bombing him.   My tiny girl who is an absolute crap hunter went into full on alert mode and actually started having a go at the gull who was trying to attack her poorly brother.   I was so surprised at how brave she was as she is such a smaller boned cat with zero attack skills leaping up in the air to counter attack the gull, whilst my bigger boned boy with excellent hunting & attack skills just ducked and cowered.   I think I have a photo of it somewhere I'll try dig out if you like.

[Weaver]

@Kitz - If you can find pic, that would be excellent.

The nest thing is something Janet talked to me about, but she’s skeptical as Thomas was in an open field with no trees and I’m assuming crows don’t ever nest on the ground. But perhaps the crows were alarmed even though their trees were distant. There are a few trees near the house, large ones despite the altitude, salt and wind. Much of Skye is treeless.

[kitz]

I thought I had one of her mid-leap but obviously not.   My boy had taken cover, but she was full on to it with no fear.  Look how high her tail is and her eyes totally focussed on it.  That right paw is ready to swipe despite it being as big as she is.   
 
It's surprising as she is not a hunter, but she just was not standing for it having a go at her poorly brother.  The only time the gulls attack like this are when they have young, the nest wasn't even particularly near - quite some distance away, but parents won't let young children play on that field during fledging time because they will attack them too, which isn't fun if a gull sends out an alarm call and suddenly there may be half a dozen or so of them dive bombing.

PS
Sorry had to reduce image size to be able to attach so its lost some clarity... so I've also cropped and added one which shows her concentration better than the first.