I had a weird experience

[andinla]

with a sparrow today. I was walking to the park and one of the kids spotted a baby sparrow on the ground. I looked around for parents, or where the nest could of been. Nothing. He wasn't moving much in my hand, and seemed to keep his eyes closed as if asleep We walked around in the alley and saw a adult sparrow who had food sticking out of his beak so I thought possibly it was this birds mom. I opened my hand and the little bird flew up to the garage where this adult sparrow was so we all figured it was it's mother. But after landing it wasn't peeping, fluttering his wings, kind of flat out on top of the roof. The adult sparrow suddenly flew away and here comes this huge crow and picks the baby up in his beak and takes off, all of us were screaming at it and I followed the crow to where he had landed a few buildings down on top of a two story commerical building, I climbed these metal stairs as fast as I could after I noticed my screaming scared this crow to fly without baby bird in mouth, but when I got to the top he was lying their dead. I was going to take the baby and bury it. But moved it into the shade under the stairs of the building. We all felt like we killed him, but I told the kids he was not going to make it any way he must of been sick.. What gets me is the little guy had enough energy to fly upon the roof, I just feel so bad.. I like crows and have never witnessed them killing other birds before.. just one time a big rat (which I saved) from them.

Andi

[maryjane]

That is a sad experience. I'm sure that the baby was injured or weak, or it would not have let you pick it up. Try not to feel bad about it; you were trying to help. Crows do eat live animals, including birds and other small critters. It is more common to see them at McDonalds going after scattered fries, a much easier target, but they do like live or dead animals. I know it can be surprising when you first see it happen, and to something you had just held Try not to feel bad about the baby.

[naturegirl]

Hi Andi I am with you but yes Maryjane is very correct and they eat baby birds, I tried to save a Baby Pigeon about 1 week of age and he flew off about 6 feet and then scared the crow away without the baby but the Pigeon died in my hands very hard to see but like others would say it is a fact of life and we can't always save them all. So sorry you had to see something like that. Seagulls will do the same as a crow.

Cindy