The House Crow

One of the first things you notice in Dar es Salaam is the House Crow.  This introduced species from India has almost taken over the city.  Apart from House Sparrows and Feral Pigeons it is virtually the only bird species seen in urban areas.  Only on the coast and in leafy suburbs like Msasani with large houses and gardens do you start to find a few other species.  The House Crows compete with all other animals for food and nest sites.  They also directly predate nests of native birds.  I don't know the how, when or where of the introduction but my field guide, getting on for 10 years old now - shows House Crows only along the coastal strip from Mombasa in Kenya to about Dar es Salaam and not far inland.  They have certainly reached Morogoro, some 180 km inland, where they are competing with Pied Crows and White-naped Ravens.

A murder of House Crows, Dar es Salaam

Over the last few days while staying in a hotel near VSO in Msasani we have been woken before dawn by the combination of roosters crowing and House Crows cawing. Our walk to VSO each morning and to dinner each evening has taken us along busy Kimweri Avenue.  Here there are no footpaths and we are constantly dodging puddles, little rubbish fires, potholes, cooking stoves, street vendors, parked cars and the crazy traffic of cars, trucks, daladalas, tuktuks, pikipikis and bicycles.  The only birds to be seen are the feral three plus chickens.

Yesterday I was looking at Google Maps and saw that there is a parallel road we could take so today we did - just for a change of scenery.  Uganda Avenue is a bit higher, unsealed and further inland than our normal route.  It is also almost devoid of traffic and the other hazards.  It passes the large hospital grounds and many large properties with grand houses and gardens.  Suddenly there were native birds.  We saw Kingfishers, Rollers, Mousebirds, Cordonbleu, Swallows, Sunbirds, Weavers, Indigobirds and others not identified.  Two of the three Kingfishers were new to me - the Mangrove and Grey-headed.  The third species - Striped Kingfisher - we had seen several times near VSO but today we saw four together in a Baobab tree making a great deal of noise and doing this weird display at each other.  Each bird would lean back and open its wings to flash the underwing pattern to a rival.  Quite funny to see but no doubt very serious business to them.

I've heard that there is a large project about to begin to cull the House Crows from Dar.  No doubt complete elimination will be impossible but the work in Canberra with Indian Mynahs suggests that a sustained effort will have great benefits to the native birds which will quickly come back.

All the more reason why House Crows that turn up from time to time in Australia should be culled.

Thursday 29 July, Dar es Salaam