Crows, kites and coucals
Crows, kites and vultures are useful scavengers. These birds effectively clean up bodies of dead animals, thus cleansing our surroundings and protecting us from disease and foul smell.
Crows are scavengers as well as predators. They are omnivores. Their diet ranges from insects, frogs, mice and snakes to roadkill and human garbage. Crows are generally considered as pests. But they perform a valuable service for humanity. Without them, dead animals would be rotting around us, causing hygiene hazards. Remember the Panchatantra story of the intelligent crow which puts pebbles into a pot of water in order to raise its level and quench its thirst? Researchers have found that despite having a nut-sized brain, the crow is as intelligent as a 7-year-old child, and can understand analogies, exercise self control and fashion tools. Highly innovative in hunting food, crows have been known to make hooked tools from soft twigs. They’ve been seen at traffic signals dropping nuts that are difficult to crack for the wheels of passing cars to run over them and break them open. An Oxford University researcher observed a crow bending a wire from its cage with the help of a stone in order to hoist a can of meat. Crows also have an uncanny memory for human faces. They remember those who have been a threat to them.
Black kites and Brahminy kites are the most commonly seen kite species in human habitats, woods and forests. A black kite is not all black but colourfully spotted with brown and grey. A Brahminy kite is brown to golden in colour with a whitish head. When not circling the sky, the black kite can be seen perched on the chimney or the parapet of a building searching for prey. It has exceptional eyesight and can spot prey or a dead creature from kilometres away. The bird’s weapons are its powerful talons and meat ripping bill. It is able to fly high with minimum effort, and dive at an extremely high speed. Some kites eat only snails, some, mainly insects but most are scavengers, feeding on carrion and roadkill. They even snatch kills from other birds. Black kites are intelligent and fearless, and the only birds known to fly towards a wildfire rather than away from it. They do this to catch insects, small birds and mammals that are trying to escape the flames. They have been seen carrying burning twigs and dropping them on dry grass elsewhere to start a fresh fire and flush out more prey.
Coucals belong to the cuckoo family. A coucal is about the size of a crow. Its head is black, its upper mantle and underside are purplish black, and its back and wings are chestnut brown. It is a scavenger as well as a predator. It eats insects, caterpillars, snails, small vertebrates like snakes and dead creatures, as well as eggs and chicks of other birds. After eating a dead animal, it sometimes leaves bits of the animal’s body parts in the nest. Like the crow, it can be seen both at dawn and dusk on trees or on the ground, devouring whatever food comes its way. While some people believe that seeing a coucal first thing in the morning is a good omen, there are others who think that the bird brings bad luck.
