If you see the tokyo sky carefully, you will notice that crow is rampant. Tokyo crow is cool. They fly tokyo sky freely and get foods fully.
In the morning, crow gather on the tokyo sky and ready for hunting.
As if tokyo is owned by crow.
What does they doning ? they are serching foods.
and if they find out foods, they wait for the chance to fetch the foods.
They gradually come close to the foods.
Crow looks around carefully and wait for the chance.
Hey, that’s crow is fake one that made by human who try to chase away crows,
One crow shout something. it must be the signal to start hunting.
Crows fly down to the food.
Now crow’s party time.
They don’t afraid of anything.
their move is very swift.
If they find food, they go soon.
But they come back soon with foods.
Comments
Excellent pictures, thank you.
Ohhghghg! Sugoi cro photos! You are merry talented, the crows are singing, the crows are singing!
that was a very nice series of photo. you must be very patient man. thank you sir!
re: http://masamania-com.check-xserver.jp/archives/pic/urban_crow045.jpg
masa are you mazda advertiser?
==================from MasaManiA
No, but I try to get ad fee from them. You are good marketer.
here in france we only have stupid pigeons which poop everywhere. i prefer crow than pigeons.
im a crow photographer too, by inadvertance, few years ago i was spending hours watching tokyo through a free webcam you could remotly control, and i took a picture of that lonely crow.
http://membres.lycos.fr/b00mbasstic/tokyocrow.jpg
===================from MasaManiA
Yes, pigeons is always seem stupid. and they are symbol of peace. it’s manybe not coincidence.
Actually it’s doves that are symbols of peace. Pigeons just symbols of stupid. Crows, however, are very smart. A friend of mine once saw a crow using a traffic intersection to crack nuts. He would perch above on a telephone wire, drop a nut, and then let passing cars crack the shell. Clever bird!
Crow is cool.
Crow no fool.
Crow not need to go to school.
Fly with grace.
Anyplace.
Open up a lock suitcase.
Coal black wing.
Croak and sing.
Love to play with shiny thing.
Masa see.
Needs no tree.
City is for them, not we.
Amazing pictures. You are a truly skilled photographer. Your beautiful pictures and stories tell more about life in Japan than a thousand crappy Japan-blogs ever can.
You, sir, are a truly great artist. Keep up the good work.
I wish I could party like a crow 😉
crows are also pretty prevalent in singapore. but the situation have since improved cause the govt implemented those crow traps placed near rubbish dumps.
quite a sight to see a crow lured into the trap and well, trapped.
=================from MasaManiA
THank you for your interesting report.
There are many crows in the start sequence of Serial Experiment Lain – a series I love.
I thought they are just a story telling device to give us an hint about the bad things to come, I didn’t know then that Tokyo is FULL of crows.
=======================from MasaManiA
Tokyo is not only full of bad, full of shit also.
Back when I visited my grandparents in Furubira, Hokkaido, I saw a crow dive and attack a suzume and then carried it off to a roof to feast on it. Too bad there were no such things as digital cameras back then. 🙁
Crows are fuckin pests! They rarely eat other pests, instead they would prefer left overs of gourment cooking and fine cuisines. And I have no knowledge regarding cooking or eating a crow. If you cannot eat a crow and a crow does not help you by eating other pests, then what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Crows are our common enemy! They carpet bomb local elementary schools with their shit every fuckin single day! I say soldiers of the new world, rise to your feet, go down to WalMart and get that Airsoft gun and holocaust them crows. Traps are for girls. We must gun down every single crow, even the lonely one somewhere in Tokyo. We must find and destroy. Hasta la vista crow and get away from my bebe.
=====================from MasaManiA
Yes, that’s right.
We have a few crows around here in Australia. We mostly have cockatoos, magpies and rainbow lorecetes. I have seen a crow Swoop down and grab half a dead rabbit that my cat was eating 🙂
Just for your information, crows in Japan are way much bigger than their counterpart in Malaysia by at least 50%.I’m not sure whether the size are just their feathers or maybe their body size.
９番のCrowはアフロを作りなー
In Spain we don´t see crows very often.
In England,I have seen many.
In Tokyo,while I was on holiday in September 2004,I saw many,and very big.They were in Kabuchicho,eating rubbish from plastic bags.
Amazing size!
Nice pictures really, and comments are… funny.
the ravens are the pride of Japan ole ole ole qe ignorantes qe sois los japoneses copon luego venis a spain y os qejais de qe os pican las caamras no te jodes pues a veranear con vuestra puta madre pa lo unico qe estais cualificaos es pa yevaros una ostia!!!!! (ese torrente typycal spanish) venga sinchanes qe tenemos ganas de jugar a MGS3 sanke eater FFXIII y FF ADvent CHildren
KARASU….!
King of the city,
From the top of the buildings
Your black eyes,
You attack and afraid people,
you’re laughing at them noisely,
Karasu, you must be a nice akuma.
Pit
In Montreal we have pigeons
========from MasaManiA
Yes, tokyo have also lots of pigeons.
Crows are very smart…
Crows even have culture too. So the crows in Japan have a different culture than the crows in America (and the crows in Singapore or Malaysia have different culture too)!! Its true!
Sometimes it is possible for a person to know what the crows say to each other. They have a crow language (but it is based on their culture).
For example:
Where I live in America, if the crows shout 3 times very quickly, it means something dangerous is coming… and all the crows should leave soon or be very careful.
It is helpful to know this because then people can look and find if there is danger coming too (because there are many crows and they are watching everything, even when a person can’t!!)
Maybe it is different for Japanese crows, but it is a helpful thing to know…
=========From MasaManiA
Thank you for your report.
Crows are the gay offsprings from Ravens
a group of crows is known as “a murder of crows”
this is a true statement
there is much ancient superstition and literature about the crow
and its close relative the raven
tapping tapping at my chamber door
quote the raven
nevermore
Do you not have pigeons in Japan? Of course we have crows here, but pigeons seem to perform the duties here that crows do there. Great blog. My favorite. Post more.
======from MasaManiA
Yes, Japan is also pigeon ranpant.
thank you
I really like the pictures of the pretty crows.
Lame question, Masa do you think about taking pictures of any kind of other animals? Like cats?
=======from MasaManiA
I dont know but I will.
Cool crow picks Masa. I really like the close up shadowy crow pictures (urban crow 006 & 022).
If crows are such a pest in Tokyo why don’t more people put their trash into trash cans?
======From MasaManiA
Sometime they do, sometime they can’t
I look at the pictures, and I imagine the story. Suspense! I like your good story! Party time! 🙂
========from MasaManiA
Thank you
The US sometimes has problems with stray dogs and cats…
One popular solution-put some cayenne pepper in the trash. Stray animals rip open the trash and get a mouthful of hot pepper the first time and never come back.
I don’t know if that would work for crows
“Crow, crow, spill all ya know
Who murders who, and where is the treasure
Rook, Rook, by hook or by crook
I’ll make you tell me…
Say, is that my name in the book?”
I’m not sure who sings this or if I even got all the words right, but I kinda liked the tune that goes with it…
A lot of crows probably means a lot of waste.
People are not eating all of their food and are just putting it into the garbage. They think the garbage can solves all problems with unwanted items, they never stop to think about where the garbage goes.
And so crows get food and toxic things get put in landfills or incinerated.
People are not eating all of their food…
Has anyone else seen the episode of Cowboy Bebop that ends with Edward eating a ‘pudding’ and a strange new ecosystem/refriderator getting jettisoned? There are some things in this world that I would much rather put in the trash and NOT eat.
Lumpy milk
Moldy bread
Weevils in a bag of flour
Blighted corn
Cockroaches and rats
Spam
And the list goes on and on…
Just dispose of your toxic waste properly so it can get treated, recycle, and remember most organic waste is HIGHLY biodegradable (think compost).
khaw ! khaw !!
this is the sound that the crows and ravens make in my city
I wonder if the crows language and sound is the same in tokyo ?
=========From MasaManiA
Yes, same.
i was washing a tennis court for a crappy job and i found a young crow who couldn’t fly very well yet. the interesting thing is that it had bright blue eyes. Some people steal baby crows from nests to make a nice pet. The crow will fly around and then come to yuo with something it found like coins or diamonds. The crow i found flew into a tree before i finished walking the rich man’s tennis court. so i couldnt keep it.
Awesome crow pictures. There are a lot of ravens up here in northern Canada, even bigger than those crows. Some of them even know how to open trashcans. But I really appreciate them, since they help keep scraps of food garbage off the streets.
When I was in Japan, I noticed the crows always caw 5 times, in America they caw about… 3 times usually
But man, Japanese crows are gigantic, no wonder you’ve got tengu legends.
nice shot!! cool!!. are they attack people?? in malaysia there attack people walking on the street. some more they fucking noisy. people here try to shooting them down. CROW!! is no good in malaysia.
may b i wil try to take some photo upload to my blog.
heheh…
anw!! i like yr photo taking. kep it on….. kep it on…..
Wow.
Tokyo crows are alot bigger and meaner-looking than the crows in Southern California!
i think crow in tokyo sepeak japanese language
Japanese karasu are beautiful and very intelligent.. i think i will get sleeve tattoo of a karasu next time i am in Japan
I am currently reading a book about Crows and Ravens. They are quite intelligent and capable of inventing tools to obtain food. (No different from the rest of us.) I enjoyed your photos immensely and hope you will hold onto and expand this activity.
Have you studied starlings at all? Sometimes they fly in huge groups in wonderful flight patterns. I understand it is to discourage preditors (and those on the outside of the formation are the most vulnerable).
I’ve been there a couple of times and noticed that the crows in Tokyo have a deeper sound than the ones in Los Angeles. More menacing…like a maniacal laugh. Especially in large groups. I always imagined them mocking me.