Living in NYC with rats, I'm always reminded of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, where Jack Shaftoe is in Paris in the late 17th century and meets St-George, the city's preeminent rat-catcher. St-George explains how no one is never going to exterminate _all_ of the rats, so he instead only kills the bad kind of rats and lets the "good" rats live, in a sort of multi-generational rat breeding program. St-George says that he has been doing this for many years, and his father before him, and his father before that. Jack asks, "how do you know the rats aren't breeding YOU?"
I had a similar thought today when feeding some crows. Usually they don’t like it when other people show up, and they leave or hide for a bit in a tree or some such. So by proxy I don’t like having people around since we all have to wait. It’s a nice bit of converged purpose I guess where I adapt my behavior as well. Most people who go there are usually oblivious of any birds. They just don’t see it.
I have found that they like dry, unsalted popcorn. They also like small kibbled dog food, and really go nuts over dried cranberries and unsalted almonds. If there are sunflower seeds in the mix, they are always the last to be eaten.
An expert recommended it above most things. They like some insects above all, but sunflower seeds mostly. They pretend to like bread, but they usually hide it in a stash and don’t eat it unless they really hungry.
There's just something absolutely enchanting and quaint about being friends with crows, and learning what your local murder's favorite foods are absolutely let's you get in their good graces faster.
