Monday, March 21, 2011

Book Sharing Monday - Murder of Crows

A Murder of Crows by Richard and Louise Spilsbury was  a great find for us at our library. Here in Edmonton there really are only three birds we usually see. Magpies, crows, and pigeons. That's pretty much it. So what better way to stay connected to nature than to study what we see. This book explains just about everything you'd ever want to know about crows and I guaranty that if you dislike crows this book will change your mind about them. They are such intelligent birds. They can use, make, and store tools. They can imitate common sounds like a cat meows or human words. They are more than just the dumb, over-populated, dirty bird that many of us may think they are. I challenge you to learn more about one of the most common birds in North America! This book is a great start! :)

To read more Book Sharing Monday Books or join in visit Canadian Home Learning.

7 comments:

l said...

LOL! We're both doing a book on birds!
Crows are very intelligent! Adrienne read a novel from Shane Peacock (Eye of the Crow). The author (he's the one we went to the public school to see) told us about crows and the research he had done. Interesting!
He also said to search on youtube for videos of crows using tools.

Serena said...

Ah, and then there are all the wonderful folktales about crows (and ravens)! Thanks for the recommendation ;-)

In my neck of the woods though, here in Edmonton, I see tons of sparrows, several chickadees, dozens of robins (so beautiful to listen to in the summer evenings), and the occasional bluebird. And just a few months ago, where we are building our new home, the neighbourhood was flooded with migrating waxwings!

Learning With Passion said...

Serena. How do I move to your neighbourhood? We are getting Nature Deficit Disorder here in our area. Being in an apartment with no sun streaming in isn't fun. One tree in front. I'm not even sure I can hang a feeder without someone knocking it down on us. We have lots of traffic noises. The other day my husband swears he saw a blue jay while driving.

Serena said...

Hmmmm, ya, apartments without sunlight, I've been there. My experience was a basement suite complete with magpies that woke me up at 7am each morning.

Right now we live near the commonwealth stadium/Little Italy, but are moving near Rundle and Goldbar parks (northside of the river)! I'm so excited to be moving so much closer to nature...um, you can come visit?! I haven't seen them yet, but our framers saw a bald eagle flying in the river valley on different occasions (while building our home).

I guess your best bet is one of the many river valley parks and go hiking. Unless you can move ;-)

Melissa said...

Thanks for this...we have ravens here rather than crows but still, they are one of my favourite birds. Something about that mournful call gets me every time!

Learning With Passion said...

Oh BTW Alex. I posted this weeks ago. Maybe even the beginning of February. I had way too many great books from the new library and typed up the posts way in advanced because I didn't want to miss any good ones. We tried to study magpies and found out they are related to crows so studied crows too. Have fun with learning about birds. I have some old posts about birds as well. And a good one that I'll be posting in a couple of weeks is about magpies building nests and comparing their nest to many other birds. It's a great book as well. It's called The Magpies' Nest.

VivJM said...

This sounds like a great book. I have always held crows in awe a bit and seems I am not alone! Thanks for sharing.