How long do crows live?

Birds: How can I start a relationship with the crows that live on my street?

• I'm fascinated by the documentaries I've seen on crows and there are a lot that hang out in the trees on my street. I don't have any intention of trying to "tame" one, but just wondering if it's possible to start interacting with them in a positive neighborly way.

• Answer:

  I spent some time feeding Steller's jays almost daily at my house ~10 years ago, and got to the point where they would land a few feet across from me on a picnic table to get their food. I was able to recognize some of them as individuals with distinctive markings and behaviors. If you have crows in your area, I'm pretty sure the same approach would work with them. Steller's jays and crows are both in the corvid group, though crows have a greater reputation for being smart so they might learn to trust you faster. I had a couple of bird feeders behind my house that had peanuts, which the jays really liked. Plus I'd throw a handful of nuts out, at least a couple times a day, and I'd whistle loudly as I did so - just a simple ascending tone, as loud as I could manage, repeated a couple times. At first I'd stand on my deck and throw the nuts 20 feet out. Then I'd throw some 15 feet out and some 20. As they got more comfortable picking up the nuts at shorter distances I'd throw them closer - but still throwing some further to attract the less bold birds and to give the bold ones some easy pickings. After 2 or 3 months I was sitting down and tossing the nuts 5-10 feet, or placing them across from me on a 5-foot diameter picnic table. I was hoping to get them to pick nuts from my hand, but never got that far. There was a milestone early on where I could tell that the birds were watching me to see where I'd throw the food. Later on they would fly down to the picnic table if I wasn't there, and they'd look for me in my kitchen (the table was right outside my kitchen window). I was never entirely certain whether they would respond to my whistle if they couldn't see me, but there were times when I would whistle into a yard with no jays, and have a half-dozen of them in the trees watching me after a minute or two, so it sure seemed like they were coming to my call. My girlfriend would do the whistle too, and she was sure they were responding to it. At one point I left my sliding glass door open and set out a trail of nuts that led into my dining room. One of the birds came in to get the last nut, which was about a foot inside the door. There are crows in the neighborhood, but they were rarely in my back yard. And when they were around, they always stayed up in the trees, higher than the roof of my two-story house. I don't think I ever saw them on the ground. My only guess is that they prefer more open spaces, and my back yard was too claustrophobic with all of the trees and bushes. But the jays were a lot of fun. (I just moved to a new place and I'm looking forward to seeing what sorts of birds come around.) I mostly used peanuts and hazelnuts. Nuts with shells were preferable - since the jays would bury them rather than eat them, they would come back over and over and over. Whereas with ready-to-eat nuts, the birds would eat them, get full, and then lose interest. I don't know what would work best with crows but if you can find something that they cache away and return for more, you should stick with it. The same technique works with squirrels, by the way. I've actually lured one into climbing up my pant-leg to get a nut that I held at my waist. I'm certain that I had other neighbors helping me train that one - it learned to trust me very quickly. (And in retrospect I think I went much too far - I'd hate to find out that he climbed up someone else's pants when they weren't expecting that.)