Quote Originally Posted by budwom View Post
We've had quite a few crows in our area for 30 years, and they're quite interesting to watch. What you saw is extremely common: crows will harass hawks all day long as they pose an existential threat so they dive bomb them...similarly, smaller birds will chase off the crows who often raid their nests...a former UVM prof, Bernd Heinrich, was a world renowned expert on crows and ravens (corvids, not covids!) and his lectures were fascinating...extremely intelligent birds with complex interactions. They've been known to fashion tools, e.g. bending a piece of wire in order to retrieve food from a tube...

Also not unusual to see crows chase foxes down our driveway, dive bomb pecking them as they go...
Years ago I was fishing on Currituck sound and watched a pair of crows use a diversion tactic on some martins. The first flew close enough to get them all upset and chasing it away, then the second swooped in a stole an egg while they were all busy. It seemed to me that they had "planned" it out, as they were both on a pier a few houses down. The first then flew over in plain site, making a lot of noise and attracting a ton of attention. Whereas the second flew low close to the water from pier to pier until he got near the nest and then slipped in silently. It was very interesting to watch happen. (clearly there were no fishing biting at the time)