The methods to track these birds are amazing. I’m also surprised about where they make their nests, and their longevity, and their white feathers, as they age. It’s really interesting that they have such different personalities. The pictures really help in identification. I’m in Western NY. I would love to spot one of those tagged crows in my field! 

Two interesting things - how long the crow lives and where they nest. I now have an idea of where to look for them. Being at the center top of a tree and the crow's nest on sailing ships, how things are named is always interesting.

-I was surprised by the age of the birds. I've worked with banding birds before so I am familiar with the process. I also learned where to look for their nests.

Neat that your records include which birds specifically they ate with when they were juveniles. I find it fascinating that these birds' life stories are being recorded.

The wing ID tags seem very large and my initial reaction was given the bird's intelligence, I wondered if they noticed them or were bothered by them.

The biggest and best surprise to me was that the researchers didn't use gloves in handling the baby or adult crows. Obviously it didn't affect the parent crows reaction to their babies after they had been handled.

The biggest surprise was how many different ways the birds are banded

How many forms of identification they utilize.  Also that they sometimes use radio on the birds is interesting. I didn’t know that great horned owls used their nests.

The fact that they triple tag them, which of course makes sense since they have such a long life expectancy. That they can identify them by their behavior and other characteristics when or if the tags eventually fall off or wear off. That they make their nests high up in the center of tall trees and don't reuse them.

I found it interesting that they have a hard time finding the nests each year due to the fact that the crows don’t go back to the same nest.

It's awesome to hear that some crows you have researched have lived to be 19 years old! What is the oldest crow you have followed/researched?

I didn't realize that the crow research team followed individual crows for so long and had such an intricate understanding of the relationship between crows in the study area.

Wish I could watch that video, so far none of the videos have been available

I was happy to learn the purpose of the wing tags, they seem so large, though clearly the crows are not bothered by them. There are 2 - 9 crows in my neighbourhood that I see daily and come to my feeders, oh my goodness I would love to know who is who! I think I can tell about two fairly confidently based on behaviour, but there is no way to know. I was also happy to learn how long they live. I had heard they could live a very long time in captivity, but I did not know they also have long lives in the wild. What a wonderful thing to study, they are really wonderful and amazing birds.

The number of Identifiers used.

I was delighted to learn that crows have a long longevity.  I have one famil that comes to my feeder on a regular basis and brings its young to it every spring.  The one crow has developed a dime sized white spot on it'a right wing.  I did not know that the babies have blue eyes.  So pleased to learn about the leg bands.  I have photographs of several birds with various leg bands and wondered about them.  One had 3 leg bands.  Thank you for the information.

It was interesting to know that young crows have blue eyes. Never observed this before but I will look for it next time I'm observing crows to see if I can use that as a cue to deduce age. Also, the analogy about the "crow's nest" on ships to describe where crows typically place nests was very good - will definitely help me remember where to spot crow nests. Very interesting to see how researchers are able to track individual crows for such extended periods of time.

I never knew that people could have so many ways to identify one bird! I think it is amazing that you manage to catch these beautiful birds and, even after their tags have fallen off, have ways to recognize them years later!

I didn't know that young crows had blue eyes. I did think it was fascinating to learn just how much data about the crows has been collected over 30 years. It was also very interesting to learn about the various bands and identification markers used, and how long they lasted (I'm actually surprised that some of them last 10 years or more).

Thomas Earnest Seaton in "Wild Animals I Have Know" (I think that was the name of the book).  I read it a long, long time ago and have appreciated cows because of his story. He reported on his research, using a crow renamed as "Silver Spot". How much of what he wrote has been found to be true and false?

The most interesting thing is that you take the babies out of the nest.  Where are the parents while you are doing this? I didn't think crows would have as long of lifespan as you stated.  I was thinking more in the 10 year range.

While I’m not surprised that the research team follows as complete a life cycle as possible - i never realized that crows life span was so long!  Additionally, i am surprised that baby birds can be taken, tagged and returned to the nest without ill effects.  That makes me happy.  I am guessing when you can tag these birds - you get to know their personality a bit more - and then the social interaction...perhaps getting ahead of myself on that presumption.  I will start looking for a crow’s nest next time in in area i know have many crows...now that i know where to look... i may get lucky..

The bloodletting.

What we found interesting was that the parents of the baby birds who were removed, banded etc accepted the baby birds afterwards. Our understanding is that parent birds will reject those that have been handled by humans.

I recently read The Genius of Birds and realized I hadn't thought of birds as individuals - I really thought everything was driven by instinct and that one bird was pretty much a substitute for another. This research reinforces that. I also didn't realize that Crows live that long, or that their feathers turn white as they age.