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Fri, 29/12/2006 - 11:20pm
Dec. 29, Judy posted a video of Pied Crow, persistently pecking at and aggravating an injured Hooded Vulture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8zZestS9I
I have seen them do the same thing to a healthy Ground Hornbill. There is a Hornbill video on my album page and you can see the Crow moving in on the Hornbill. The video stops, but the Crow continued to pester the Hornbill the same way, until he finally drove it off.
Does anyone know what motivates that behavior?
The Behaviour is most easily explained by simple competition. In both examples the crow was harrassing (driving off?) another scavenger, the hooded vulture and ground hornbill.
Since all three species will complete for the same (limiting) resource, the species with the most "attitude" may well drive off the others. I would however think that a ground hornbill could easily hold its own against a pied crow being significantly larger.
Interesting observation.
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