This series of photos of a crow landing on an eagle is a must see

BlueViper_ over on Reddit has shared an great series of images of a crow landing on a eagle

They’ve captioned them, “Thug life level – Crow” which is pretty funny but we find the explanation of what’s happening even more interesting:

Alantha on Reddit who identifies himself as an “Ecologist” then writes:

Ecologist swooping in.

This great shot was explained in a National Geographic article.

The article does a nice job of explaining why the crow is attacking – territory combined with a likelihood of chicks to protect. The fun thing though is why is the eagle allowing this?
Well, two reasons. One, eagles are not great at dealing with attacks from above. If the crow is mobbing it or harassing it from the side it’s easier for the eagle to see and adjust accordingly. The eagle also isn’t as quick to change maneuvers than our Corvid friend. The crow is a lot swifter.

Two, the crow isn’t really a great threat to the eagle. It can peck at it or rake it with its talons, but in the end it’s not going to do much damage. Compared to the eagle the crow doesn’t have much weight behind it. Even landing on the eagle doesn’t bother it much. The crow weighs very little compared to the eagle. Your average American crow weighs around 1.5 lbs at the higher end whereas a Bald eagle weighs around 14 lbs at the higher end. Carrying something that is 10% your body weight isn’t too difficult.

If caught the eagle could easily kill the crow, but the energy it would cost to try to get something that agile just isn’t worth it for the eagle. So it takes the abuse until the crow loses interest in it or it moves beyond the crow’s territory.

Crows will really mob just about anything that gets too close to their nests. Here’s a good write up on crow mobbing.They’ve even mobbed humans and then remembered which humans were harassing them by recognizing their faces. Here is a great NY Times write up on it and a short video by Dr. Marzluff who did the study. He wrote a book called Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans which I really enjoyed, if anyone is interested.

Crows also love to have fun, so I wouldn’t be surprised if when it landed on that eagle it was a little amused by the fact it could. I watched two crows take turns stealing fish from a few Greater black-backed gulls when at the beach with my undergrads. The gulls walked up to the fish and the crows would pull it just out of reach, then wait for the gull to walk up again. They did this for about 2 or 3 minutes before the second crow started sneaking up behind the gull to pull its tail feathers every time it went for the fish. They weren’t hungry, they were just screwing around.
Before settling in on insects I worked with birds for a few years and really grew to love the crows. They are fascinating animals!

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/4j0190/thug_life_level_crow/