Coral tree raven

They like to nibble on the flower petals.

Wind dancers

A white gull feather was drifting on the wind. Then a raven swooped to snap it up, dropped the feather, and caught it again: 

These two were dancing over the sea:

Whitecaps below:

Raven with pinecone

This raven appeared to be picking out bugs or seeds from within the pinecone, but I also got the impression that it was having fun examining and picking apart this complex object. 

Chip

Last month, I saw this juvenile crow at my apartment complex--note the chipped beak:

I fed it, and the other crows, some nuts and peanut butter pretzels. Then, for a few weeks, I didn't see the crow with the chipped beak at all-- until this week:

 The crow's neck feathers have grown in nicely, and its beak appears to have healed slightly but still have a distinctive indentation. (According to crow expert Kaeli Swift *, broken beaks can regrow if the breakage only affects the outer keratin cover, not the underlying bone, as seems to be the case here.)

The same crow amid aeoniums

^{* An ornithologist named Swift is a fine case of nominative determinism. I also know of a marine biologist named Helen Scales, a TV weather forecaster named Dallas Raines, and (my personal favorite) a 19th-century psychologist named Sir Henry Head.} 

Egg hunt

I saw a mourning dove flying out of a big tree in our front yard, followed by a crow with something in its beak-- something white and ovoid:

Little kids aren't the only ones hunting eggs this weekend.

Passerines

Bushtit

Waxwings

Whydah

Bluebird enjoying a berry

Jay!

Another jay

Poised to swoop

Scrub Jay in search of peanuts

Morning

Neon sky

Scrub Jay awaiting peanuts

Moon and Venus (the tiny pixel at lower left)

Nesting season is over, but bluebirds still use these boxes for shelter

White beauty

Reflection

Funereal Duskywing

Silkfloss crow

Spy crows

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THE United States military funded research into using networks of 'spy crows' to locate soldiers who are missing in action, and extended the work to see if the birds might be useful in helping them to find Osama bin Laden. The idea may seem far-fetched, but unlike some military research programs (such as the Stargate remote-viewing program) it is actually based on sound science.

From Neurophilosophy. See here for more on the intelligence and memory abilities of crows.