Sex-(a)typical behavior?
I’ve been feeding two crowbies for 5–6 weeks now, and they’ve shown very distinct personalities:
- Crow A: Extremely loud (cawing like a maniac all the time and for any reason), much more curious and bolder around new objects (like metal or glass bowls). A always calls for Crow B when food appears, goes to fetch B if B is not around, and lets B eat first while standing guard.
- Crow B: Much more careful and tentative, unreasonably terrified of anything new (especially bowls), and very quiet overall. B is slightly bigger than A, but not by much.
Based on that, I initially assumed A was male and B was female.
Then, earlier this month, there was a full week where they suddenly became very quiet and scarce - barely stopping by once or twice a day, when they used to hang around all day, cawing, flying, beefing with other birds intruding on their territory and sometimes following me on my short walks. The nesting season is here!
A few days ago, things changed again. Now only B comes by, but it’s constantly, often 7–8 times a day, and flies off with beakfuls of food.
So, based on this new behavior alone, B is definitely the male, right? A shy, reticent male with a bold, noisy female.
Which reminds me: when squirrels charge them around the food bowls, A backs off and flies away eventually, but B never does - B might move around to keep facing the squirrel, and sometimes actually puffs up and makes like shoulders with the upper part of the wings, so basically is less likely to back off.