Little crow (bird)

The little crow (Corvus bennetti) is an Australian species of crow, very similar to the Torresian crow in having white bases to the neck and head feathers (shown when ruffled in strong wind) but slightly smaller (38–45 cm in length) and with a slightly smaller bill. It has the same white iris that distinguish the Australian species from all other Corvus except a few island species to the north of Australia, and one from Eurasia, the jackdaw (Corvus monedula). Like the Australian raven, this species has a blue ring around the pupil.

Distribution and habitat

It ranges over western and central Australia, often inhabiting very dry, near desert areas. It frequents small country towns and cultivated areas, where its flocks have reminded people of the European Rook.

Behaviour

Diet

Its food is mainly taken from the ground and includes insects, cereals and other seeds. It is less of a scavenger than the Torresian crow.

Nesting

It usually nests in small, loose colonies, building stick nests lined with mud (the only Australian species of Corvid to do this).

Little Crow

Little Crow (Dakota: Thaóyate Dúta; ca. 1810 – July 3, 1863) was a chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota people. His given name translates as "His Red Nation," (Thaóyate Dúta) but he was known as Little Crow because of his grandfather's name, Čhetáŋ Wakhúwa Máni, (literally, "Hawk that chases/hunts walking") which was mistranslated.

Little Crow is notable for his role in the negotiation of the Treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota of 1851, in which he agreed to the movement of his band of the Dakota to a reservation near the Minnesota River in exchange for goods and certain other rights. However, the government reneged on its promises to provide food and annuities to the tribe, and Little Crow was forced to support the decision of a Dakota war council in 1862 to pursue war to drive out the whites from Minnesota. Little Crow participated in the Dakota War of 1862, but retreated in September 1862 before the war's conclusion in December 1862.

A contemporary description of him when he was in his forties was as follows "The chief is a man of some forty five years of age and of a very determined and ambitious nature, but withal exceedingly gentle and dignified in his deportment. His face is full of intelligence when he is in conversation and his whole bearing is that of a gentleman." Little Crow was shot and killed on July 3, 1863 by a settler.