Expert: Roger Lederer - 4/21/2010

Question
We have a large black bird that is "depositing" larger scraps of food on a fairly large (36") round bird bath. It has always been a meat of some kind but usually like a chicken leg, chicken breasts (all previously cooked) and picked pretty clean. My wife saw a very large all black bird that seemed to be the culprit. She says it's possibly a crow but the biggest crow she has ever seen. We live 80 miles souteast of Chicago in farm country but we live on a river. Does this sound like a crow? Is this a typical behavior as I have never heard of this we are just very interested. We remove the item and we get another one (only one) the following day. This has been going on about 9 days. Thanks for your help

Answer
It could be a Raven, which looks like a very large crow. Young ravens sometimes all other young ravens to a food cache. They deposit food and then call other ravens to it. Even though the item might be picked clean, it's an indication that the raven has found a food supply and wants to inform the others. He/she is just basically showing off to other ravens - sort of like teenagers do. It's not unusual among ravens and I would surmise that crows do it too.