Turf war negotiations

February 20, 2014 by Mike Powell

Trying to avoid an all-out turf war, the leaders of the Crows and Vultures agreed to meet, but the negotiations quickly started to break down. What happened?

The leaders had agreed to meet alone in the middle of a snow-covered field.

However, the Crow leader had brought reinforcements with him and the Vulture found himself outnumbered.

Not wanting to show any fear, the Vulture leader decided to flex his muscles and extended his mighty wings. The Crows were not impressed and would not agree to any compromises.The Vulture leader started to feel a little uncomfortable as he felt someone creeping up behind him and turned quickly to face the potential Crow assassin.

Clearly, these negotiations were not going anywhere and the Vulture leader headed back to announce to his subordinates that a full-scale turf war with the Crows was about to begin.

Posted in Birds, Humor, Nature, Photography, wildlife, Winter | Tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, crow, crows, Huntley Meadows Park, turf war, turkey vulture, vulture | 19 Comments

19 Responses

on February 20, 2014 at 9:24 am | Reply Victor Rakmil

Great post!
- on February 20, 2014 at 7:35 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Victor. It’s fun sometimes to come up with fun prose to justify showing a series of photos of a single incident. (I enjoy the writing part of a blog almost as much as the photography side of it.)
on February 20, 2014 at 9:49 am | Reply SueBee and Kat

And the moral of the story is… numbers outrank size?!! Really great post. ~SueBee
- on February 20, 2014 at 7:33 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  I’ve seen crows bothering an eagle, which seemed pretty foolhardy to me, but apparently the crows adopt a mob mentality. I had a fun time with the posting and I am glad that you enjoyed it.
on February 20, 2014 at 11:02 am | Reply waltersanford

Quite an imagination, Mike! The way I see it, the vulture was trying to enlist the crows’ help in taking you down! 😉
- on February 20, 2014 at 7:31 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  You’re going to make me paranoid, Walter. I’ve already had one incident with a vulture circling around me overhead. If the vulture enlists the aid of the crows, I’m doomed, for there were a lot of crows recently at Huntley Meadows.
on February 20, 2014 at 11:07 am | Reply naturesnippets

I wonder what their cuss words sound like.
- on February 20, 2014 at 7:30 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  I though it might be a dispute over food, but that didn’t seem the case. What were they doing? I know that crows will harass eagles and hawks, but don’t know if they bother vultures.
on February 20, 2014 at 12:33 pm | Reply Lyle Krahn

Great story, well told.
- on February 20, 2014 at 7:28 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks, Lyle. I seem to recall that you have been in similar situations, with a stack of photos to post that seem to cry out for a linking story, peppered with a bit of humor and drama. It’s hard to match your style, but I tried to emulate it in some ways. I suspect that the reality of the encounter between the two bird species was a lot less interesting than my version.
  - on February 20, 2014 at 8:05 pm Lyle Krahn
    
    Ah but therein lies the genius of it all. It’s impossible to prove you wrong so the creativity can be wonderfully unfettered! And just for the record, I believe.
on February 20, 2014 at 4:59 pm | Reply nliakos

Very creative! Great photos. They really tell the story.
- on February 20, 2014 at 7:23 pm | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. In a case like this, I had a series of pictures that showed some interaction between two species of birds that I found to be interesting. I have no idea what they were really doing together (I didn’t see a dead animal that they were sharing), so I decided to have some fun with the situation. As I look back at the little story, I realize that I may have been influenced by The Godfather and other such stories.
on February 21, 2014 at 5:44 am | Reply Ed

Pretty funny and great shots. I was hearing the theme from the good,the bad and the ugly..:-)
on February 21, 2014 at 6:18 am | Reply New Hampshire Garden Solutions

Funny! I knew the crows would win the whole time.
on February 28, 2014 at 5:09 pm | Reply Sue

What an interesting confrontation.
- on March 1, 2014 at 8:58 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  It was a bit strange. I wasn’t close enough to tell if this was a squabble over prey, but the vulture never looked like it was feeding/
on March 5, 2014 at 4:51 pm | Reply The Crow's Gift

Haha! This was brilliant 🙂 I can’t stop giggling!
- on March 6, 2014 at 4:55 am | Reply Mike Powell
  
  Thanks. Once I came up with the idea, it was pretty easy to come up with the narrative to link the series of photos. I am glad to know that I am not the only person with a warped sense of humor.