Friday, December 23, 2011


Winter makes life little hard for the cattle in most villages around Bandhavgarh National Park where people do not bring their cattle in the shed during night hours. Weak animals some time dies due to cold. One cow near park boundary died like that. Crows find that quick and Vultures followed them soon.  It's not only them alone but other scavengers  like dogs and jackals also got the news and they were there to get their share. Dogs kept Vultures and crow away from the dead cow so they were waiting for them to leave s they could land on the kill.
In this situation where Long Billed Vultures are sitting on trees waiting for the opportunity a Jungle Crow saw them as a big competitor for them.  He sat close to a vulture. Vulture did not object to this crow next to him. Probably he was not worried of a much smaller bird in size. Crow had different ideas. He started peeling the bark to throw it on Vulture. He tried but he could hardly throw it towards vulture. Vulture still ignoring his presence. Crow made some noise to offend Vulture but later he decided to take more physically. He knew that vulture has a much bigger stronger bill in comparison to his. Very cleverly he flew to circle the vulture and attacked on his tail. He was hanging to vultures tail but that did not hurt him at all. He tried few times to draw his attention but failed.
Now he decided to virtually attack the vulture. He lands on his back and started pecking on his back. This must have hurt the vulture. He turned back to bite the crow but crow was more clever than him. He pulled back himself out of reach of his bill but still sitting on vultures back.
This drama kept on going for next 10 minutes or so. Vulture was pecked many times on its back by this crow.  He never had a second of peace since this crow came so at last he decided to leave. Victorious Crow followed him to the next tree but came back to his tree, watching dogs and jackal chasing each other for food.       

No comments:

Post a Comment