Author: jeremytheplayer88

Posted on December 11, 2012

It’s coming to 9 straight months now that I’ve set table scraps out to the birds, and I just want to say, that I have seen a lot of changes in some of their eating habits, which have varied from season to season. First off, the starlings seem to eat every morsel of food that I have in the pile. Sometimes, they will come in the dozens when there is a lot of food out. In that case, it’ll just take an hour for the food to disappear. I do not think I am doing any harm by putting these food items out. On the contrary, the starlings find similar items in the wild. The popcorn resembles corn, and since there are lots of corn fields here in New Jersey, that is a common item for them to eat. I also put chicken out, which resembles insects. It’s kind of a weird fact that bugs taste just like chicken. I think that might be true, haha! Another food item that I put out is pasta, and although that is the last item to disappear, it is similar to something, but I just can’t name it right now. I do put soda out as well, but keep in mind, that I do watch every recording to observe how much they are drinking. I only saw a few starlings that drank more than a few sips. Even at that, by the time that bird drinks it, the soda has been out for an hour and is pretty much depleted of carbonation. In the wild, I am sure that all birds have the instinct to know if that soda is going to do any damage to them. Then again, I only saw one or two House Sparrows drinking a measly sip of soda in the summer, so I can’t be too sure on that. I won’t worry about that, I’ll just continue on and if I see any exploding birds, I’ll have it posted. How’s that sound? I’ll tell you one thing, that’s not going to happen, that’s all I can say.

The crows, on the other hand, are only collecting meat items and they don’t seem to eat anything. There was one crow that took a chicken thigh and flew down to the center of the road as if it was too heavy to fly away with. I’m not entirely sure if it was too heavy or if it just hungry and wanted to set it on a hard surface to eat a few pieces. Then, once another crow came to try to snatch the chicken, the crow flew off-camera and I couldn’t see how far the crow went after that. I am pretty sure these crows are determined to hide any food items that they collect. I’m sure if the other crow that was about to steal the chicken from that crow was watching the chicken beforehand, they knew what they would be getting themselves into if the weight of it would be too much to handle.

A few days ago, I did observe a crow taking a few pieces of popcorn, after it ate the first piece. That was one example that maybe they are eating more than just meat. I will tell you this, I know they can’t be eating meat all the time. They aren’t even eating reeses anymore either like they were in the past. That’s considered nuts to them, which is a protein-rich product just like meat is, but it may be possible that these are different crows that have never eaten them, and perhaps they don’t realize that there is peanut butter inside of the shells. The weather is getting colder, so the shells aren’t melting for the crows to smell the peanut butter either.  I did lots of research on crows, and crows eat about 1/3 animal matter and the rest is plant matter. Therefore, it is probably obvious that wherever the crows are roosting at is where they keep their food. It is quite interesting that they cache and store food items for a long time. I read that they can store perishable food items for as long as 6 months. I wonder if the crows are trying to save that meat for the Spring? They have carried away meat items in the Spring too, but I know that all that meat couldn’t be eaten right now since the crows don’t have any babies to take care of since they grew up. The babies probably ate that meat before and right now they are just managing for themselves. My gosh, back then, I remembered one crow that was sitting on a telephone wire and a few Vultures were eating all the food, then after the vultures left, only a couple of gummy worms were left and some popcorn. That crow immediately came and ate both gummy worms right on that spot. No other bird I’ve seen has eaten something like that, so I can tell you that their ability to survive on any food source is incredible! They do eat from garbage dumpsters so they have no reason to be picky when they need the food the most.

I haven’t seen any House Sparrows around. The last time I saw them was about a month ago. When they were around at the time, they were just eating popcorn from the food pile and bird seed from my grandma’s feeder. I saw one that would keep taking reeses away. That is quite strange because it’s only this one sparrow that was doing it. I’m sure that starling had a liking to them because of the shell’s sweet taste. They aren’t interested so much in eating peanut butter, but I’m sure they ate it anyways, since it’s soft enough to eat. They do eat 4% insects during the non-breeding months, so I’m sure that accounts to something when it comes to them eating the correct protein they need. In the Spring time, there were some House Sparrows that were eating nothing but chicken, but once that disappeared, they started to eat almost everything else too just like the starlings always are. That’s a drastic change compared to what I’ve recently seen.

I noticed that the reeses are eaten by the squirrels now. Also, I notice them eating the shells are well. They used to trim around those and leave the shells behind in the summer. Perhaps now, the sugar that is in the shells is crucial for them to store fat to keep warm through the winter. I am not exactly sure, but I think that is what’s going on with that. One thing that makes me wonder, if I am putting 20 reeses out and the crows observe the squirrels eating them just like they were eating nuts and taking the hidden caches, then how come they don’t do the same thing for the reeses. I’m sure the crows know that the squirrels are eating them, so why can’t they do the same thing? It seems that the crows already have enough nuts, and maybe they are stashed out on them. That’s my guess. What do you think about that one?

Well, I’m sorry it’s been a while since my last blog. I decided to make this entry because I feel more confident of what I am feeding these birds based on what they need to eat. Over these months, it didn’t click on me until now. If you got any bird feeding stories to share, I’m always open for those. Thanks for checking this post out.

Posted on June 1, 2012

I just got back from watching “Snow White and the Huntsman” and oh my gosh, the movie was so cool. Well, it all starts with Snow White, which as you know had very white skin and lips as red as rose. I would like to do a comparison to the Disney version. It’s a pretty significant difference. Well, if I were to compare anything, the beginning starts when she takes care of a baby bird, but not just any bird. This was a European Magpie. That’s a very social bird in real life, and they usually do approach people more easily than other birds. That is probably why the magpie was suited for that scene. Not only that, but they are native to England, since that’s the most common bird you’ll find there. Well, back to the story. In the Disney version of this movie, there are many types of birds that randomly come onto her hand, and she is singing to them in the beginning. In the movie, she takes care of one bird and brings it inside to show to her dad. Later on, about 5 years later when Snow White got older, that same bird is shown leading the way to safety as the guards were chasing her to bring her to the evil queen. There was another bird later on that it mated with, so there were two birds leading the way. It all stops at a forbidden forest, which the evil queen cannot enter. That is the exact place where in the disney version, she finds a cabin and meets the seven dwarfs. In both versions, the queen seeks a huntsman to kill her, which he refuses too once he sees her beauty. However, in the real version, the huntsman travels with her, rather then letting her run away in the Disney version. There is also dwarfs in both versions, although the dwarfs in the real movie hang Snow White and the Huntsman by a rope before joining forces. Lastly, they come to the middle of a forest, where she finds a deer that allows Snow White to come close and pet it. All of a sudden, an arrow strikes it and it transforms into hundreds of magpies. The guards continue to chase everyone down. These scenes never happened in the Disney version. The last, and most important scene is the fact that the queen had a few ravens as her pets. Once she is striked with a sword by the Huntsman, who survives the first blow, she transforms into a hundred ravens and attacks him. She, in her raven form, returns to the castle, where she transforms back into herself.

I seem to be talking about birds a lot, because guess what, that’s why I enjoyed this movie so much. It’s certainly worth watching. There’s a lot more I could say that doesn’t have to do with birds, but I don’t want to give too much away. If you want a movie with a good twist, this movie’s got it.

Posted on May 11, 2012

I would like to finally state that I am sick and tired of living in some sort of a fantasy world. I have had it up to here with this. I have continued to set goals for myself, even though they were never written. One of those was to get an Amazon Parrot in a few years. I made that statement back in 2009. Here it is, in 2012, and guess what? I don’t have one yet. Isn’t that astonishing? The one drawback which may have forced me to delay that is the fact that I am still in college. I still haven’t gotten my Associates’ yet, which I plan to complete this summer. On top of that, I haven’t gotten a job in over a year. I worked at my mom’s cupcake shop for the past year, but that is not a paying job. I was only paid in cupcakes, if that’s what you’d consider being paid. After I get a job, that is only the first step. I still need to learn how to drive. That’s one other goal I wish to accomplish. Once I get into a 4-year college, I want to consider an internship at Microsoft. That will complete my long-term goal of working at Microsoft. I feel that I can achieve enough just by taking that big step. I need to be able to complete all my goals, but each goal relies on several factors. One factor is me being proactive. I need to be able to do things for myself, instead of relying on others to do them for me. Doing more chores would help, as would buying school supplies for myself, and spending less time on this laptop and more time getting out and doing stuff. That is the key to me turning into a more responsible adult.

Let’s be serious though. I’m not a fully mature adult mentally. I have a mild case of autism, which does affect my judgement to that of a 15-year old. I have a good idea on how to survive in life. After all, I am satisfied with the goals I made.

There is one problem though. One of my goals has changed. As of tonight, I have decided to make this official. Here it goes. I don’t want an Amazon Parrot when I get older. I made that decision based upon the fact that I have been closely watching the crows that I have been feeding at my grandma’s front yard. I thought they were ravens at first. Nonetheless, I did a lot of research on ravens, and I really want a pet raven instead. They are the among the most intelligent animals in the world, behind dolphins and us. Their brain-to-body mass is the same as that in apes and chimpanzees. They have succeeded in finding ways to hide their food sources that is impossible to believe. Also, they have solved complex problems that not even parrots could solve. That is just a couple of things that are great about them, plus they can learn human speech.

The next thing I have to say, might be disgusting when I mention it. A few nights ago, I have been wondering about this. I came across this video that I edited and I could barely sleep. I woke up three times the night after I saw it. This crow appeared to be eating some chicken, but it seemed to be taking its time eating it. I did some research the next morning, and even though they appeared to be swallowing it, but in actuality, they are really storing these chicken pieces inside a gland in their throat. This was so cool when I found out, that I made a slowed-down version of this video to see it for myself. Once I watched that version, I then continued to keep thinking, and I still couldn’t understand. How much is it really eating? Is it grabbing just a couple of pieces or is it grabbing more than that?

Don’t you see? I’ll never know what’s going on in the crow’s beak, no matter how many times I leave that camera on the grass. I decided to create yet another goal for myself. Are you ready for the truth? Even though I really don’t feel comfortable saying this, I’m sick of hiding this. Ravens have this capability too and I just want to realize that my pet raven truly loves me, and it could take care of me the same way. I’ve got to see it…..first hand! I’ve just got to! I need to taste it, and feel the same way, as if I were just another bird. That is why I am going to ask my raven to do this. Think about it, I won’t ever have to get off my chair when my raven gets my food for me. I mean, I am afraid that I will never get this out of my head unless I have it done, just once. Maybe it’ll do it to me forever, or perhaps, it’ll refuse to regurgitate its food to me at all. I don’t know. Typically, the only time it takes the effort to do this task is when its taking care of a member of its flock. Perhaps this fact will change.

This is one thing that triggered this idea. In my imagination, I witnessed a wizard who had to be abandoned when the king and queen were killed. Their forefathers were killed as well. They knew there was no hope in there being another heir in the kingdom, so right before the king died, he dropped his baby out in the forest. It was a dark forest with thorns and a dirt path. It was a sanctuary of hundreds of ravens, and nobody that has set into this forest has survived, as these ravens are very territorial. Well, he was found by two ravens. He was raised and ravens, but he learned to talk normally because the ravens managed to pick up human speech from overhearing the people in the castle. They also collected food for the wizard all his life. He had no choice but to accept whatever the ravens fed to him. He mostly ate the meat that the ravens snuck out of the castle of the two neighboring kingdoms, and rarely anything else. He never left the raven place, because he felt most at home where he was. He built a castle where he stayed to do his spells, and made his ravens his bodyguards. He created a task where whoever survives a test will gain access to his spells and can have any magic spell that person desires. These abilities are tested, strength, agility, and intelligence. The ravens created this task, and the wizard approved it. Within the duration of this test, anyone who walks into this forest shall begin by carrying a raven on its back. For the first mile, the person cannot stop for any reason. The wizard can see everything through his crystal ball and he will teleport the person back to the beginning if that happens. He gets three strikes, the third strike is death, in which the raven will begin to peck his head off. If that person succeeds the first mile, there is a cliff that appears. There are two options. He could turn around, climb the nearest tree and jump off the highest branch which is right at the top of the cliff. Either that, or he could use his raven to tie a rope at the top and he could climb up. That’s the easiest option. At the end, there is a raven that asks a question about his/her kingdom, and if its answered correctly, access will be granted. Once the castle is reached, the two ravens will do a search on the person, then will be allowed to be seen by the wizard. Whichever spell the wizard will award is based on the person’s status. If the challenger of the test was a knight, far less effort has been achieved, so he/she won’t get any complex spells. A peasant could transform into an animal, but a knight could only get a new sword. If the knight was sent in by the king to capture the wizard, he might as well have nothing to look forward to. The wizard isn’t going anywhere, as he’s being guarded by his ravens. They will not allow him to leave the vicinity of his castle. Now, the wizard does have evil intentions. A few times, he has called hundreds of ravens over to escape him from the castle. They have achieved to take him anywhere he wishes to go, but because he is guarded, he can’t be seen by any people at all, otherwise, they must leave. He has caused himself to be treated as a bad guy, because of the fact that he was from a bad kingdom. He used his magic spells to destroy entire cites, including generating fires and giant tsunamis. He has done everything that a warlock would do, although he uses his hands to do all his spells. As of right now, he is no longer at his castle, but is still protected by his parent ravens.

Does that explain my situation better? Well, that’s just an imagination, but anything that’s anything helps I suppose. That’s just part of the story. The rest of it is kind of complicated. I have an imaginations story on my YouTube channel, JeremyTheViewHacker, but I’ll just leave it to you if you want to watch it.

Posted on May 5, 2012

I would just like to share a dream that I had last night. It felt so real, that it didn’t feel like a dream when I was dreaming it. I know that you probably think that all the time from your dreams, but this is more unique than that. I foresaw this dream coming, and that’s why I thought this had to be real.

Let me begin. It all started when I was at the college. I was leaving class, and heading for the bus. I then walked onto the bus, and sat down on the third to last seat on the left. I remembered that scene perfectly. I was sitting by myself, and there was a nerd with glasses and pimples on his face sitting behind me alone with a black guy. There were also one other guy on the right side. Well, there we were, all on the bus, and we were at a complete stand still. I looked out the window far into the distance to see the main building of the campus straight ahead with the Tech Building at a 45 degree angle. It had a bunch of grass and sidewalk in front of it. At a 160 degree angle, I saw the Enterprise Building of the campus. I decided to stare into the distance one last time before we left. I then saw a raven land on the grass in front of the Tech Building about 50 feet away from me. Once it proceeded closer, another raven then came about, and it landed just a foot away from where I was sitting. The bus didn’t have windows, and it was very low to the ground. I couldn’t believe how close it was. I was wondering why it was looking at me, without being afraid? Guess what I did? I reached over and I grabbed it. Yes, I actually grabbed it with my hands. There I was, on the bus sitting there, holding onto this raven. I was holding it from its back onto my chest so that it couldn’t escape. It flapped its wings just once, then gave up. It continued to struggle, and then it spoke to me. The raven said, ”Lemme go! Lemme go! Cawwww, get your hands off of me!”. I still held on tight, but a person who was sitting behind me said, “Um, maybe you should let him go, LOOK!” Then I turned it around and its face was all red. It looked very nervous. I then let it go and it flew away. A moment later, a few other ravens showed up, they all flew right behind me and right beside me. They were wearing clothes. They talked like they were black. I mean negro black. Ravens can mimic, just in case you didn’t know. It said something like “Oh, I got to see what all those humans are doing.” There was another raven just sitting next to someone on the other side of the bus without a care in the world. I wanted to pet it, but I decided not to.

I woke up when the bus started leaving, so I don’t know how this story would end. This dream just proves how much I’m really into ravens, and that I actually want a own a raven as a pet. I’ve been making a lot of videos of myself feeding the ravens. I’ve researched about them too. They are really intelligent, and their brain to body mass is the same as in apes and chimpanzees. I feel confident that I know more about them than any other bird-watcher would know.

I set my camera on the grass so that I could record these two ravens eat some buffalo wings. Usually it’s difficult to get these birds on camera because they get scared so easily. Just having a lot of food laying in one place can scare them, let alone seeing that camera sticking up on the grass. Here is the video, right here. Enjoy!

And here’s a raven eating red velvet cupcakes, which is milk chocolate. I’ve usually put out chocolate or vanilla, but the ravens seem to only like the red-velvet ones. I am guessing that its because the recipe calls for more eggs than the other ones. I don’t think the raven shows up until the middle of the clip. There were starlings eating meat at the beginning.