Crow Babies: Nest Watch Summary

March 24-30, 2019

It was an amazing week, filled with gaining the trust of a hardworking, sweet crow family and watching five little crows go from almost too small to see over the nest’s edge to rambunctious, curious babies.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!

Sadly, my love affair with this family is coming to a close. We are headed back to Austin, leaving our friends here in New Orleans with peanuts and perhaps some new friends to get to know. 

For those of you who missed it, I’ve spent a week watching a nest of young crows. My best estimate is that I began observation when they were 10-12 days old, and they were tended by parents and one helper. Below, there are links to all the posts in this Nest Watch series.

And here is a compilation video of all seven days of footage, edited down to 2 minutes for those of you who prefer Cliff Notes.

So How Did the Week Unfold?

Here’s a quick summary, but you can also click through to each individual blog post to get each day’s detailed observations.

Crow Babies: Day 1

Getting the Lay of the Land, wherein I locate the nest, look for the best viewing spots, identify 3 adults tending the nest, and that the babies are already hatched and visible.

Crow Babies: Day 2

Setup, Location and Growing in Leaps and Bounds, wherein I narrow down a small window of best media capture at the nest, observe some reasons why the nest location might have been chosen, and already see the little ones getting stronger.

Crow Babies: Day 3

Beginning of Friendship, Hygiene, and Three’s a Party, wherein the crows finally accept my peanut offerings, Mama spends a lot of time grooming babies, and all three adults spend a lot of time at the nest together.

Crow Babies: Day 4

Head & Shoulders, Winging It, and Woodland Ruckus, wherein the largest of the babies is stretching high in the nest, I finally observe some wing stretching, and stand around in the woods a lot trying to understand why the crow adults are so agitated.

Crow Babies: Days 5 & 6

Trust Grows, Crowded House, Preening, and the Hazards of Boomerang Kids, wherein the crows finally take peanut offerings while I’m watching, the Fab Five are getting very active, the self-cleaning module is installed, and mom & dad shoo off last year’s kiddos who still want handouts.

Crow Babies: Day 7

Bouncy House, Hydration, the Joys of Housekeeping, wherein the babies are bright-eyed and very active, I observe mom adding hydration to meal delivery, baby antics ensue and I get an eyeful of the realities of diaper changes in the nest.

Equipment Geekery

For those of you who are curious, the nest watch photos and video were all shot with my Canon 1D Mark IV, with a Tamron 150-600mm Gen 2 lens with a Tamron 1.4x extender. 

The extender really cuts light and quick focus ability for an otherwise pretty responsive super-zoom lens, but in this case, with it mounted on a tripod focused on a fixed location, it worked out pretty well. I can tell there is some give on quality, but the extra reach was very helpful when dealing with such small targets.

I haven’t shot much video with this setup, but I’m trying to take advantage of it more often. Again, this kind of stationary setup worked the best of anything I’ve tried. If I wanted to focus on video quality, I’d definitely look into different equipment, but since photography is really my love, this fills a handy gap when motion is a better way to show the experience.

I bumbled my way through very amateur editing in Adobe Premier Pro, because I had it and I didn’t want to search for something else. I’m sure my videographer friends and crying and gnashing their teeth at my execution on all fronts, but I readily admit that this part of my storytelling would need a big push to achieve enter the Big Leagues. Until then, this is what we get.

All the Media

For those of you who don’t want the commentary and just want the gratuitously cute pictures and video, here is a Flickr Photo Gallery and a YouTube Playlist to give you the happy!