Clowning crows: Pied Crows at play?

Abstract

On Sunday 2 September 2012, a colleague and I were travelling on the N1 in vicinity of Three Sisters near Beaufort West towards Cape Town. We came across what appeared to be a Pied Crow Corvus albus hanging upside down from a telephone wire about 20 m from the roadside. We turned our vehicle around to go back and take a photograph and try to ascertain how the bird had died. However, as we pulled up to the crow, it dropped off the line and flew away. It had something small in its bill as it flew off.