Fionnuala

2) I live in the UK, so I'm more familiar with Carrion crow, but want to do the course because I'm interested in crows and haven't seen anything like this course in the UK. Can anyone tell me any differences between carrion and American crow, other than location, because they look the same to me and we use exactly the same features to distinguish carrion from raven here? Hopefully I can come and see the American ones someday. Carrion crow seem to be absolutely everywhere over here. In England people often say crows are solitary, whereas rooks are the social ones, but I think this is just a local myth because there are huge flocks of crows in the fields near where I live. (Rooks are another corvid very common in the UK, but easily distinguishable when close because they have a bare face. They make such huge nesting colonies that apparently house prices go down if they nest nearby because of the terrific noise.) I  love them because they are smart, create a lot of atmosphere and they all have different sounding voices. 3) Wild ravens are uncommon in the city in the UK. I've seen them make a huge nest in castle ruins. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a crow's nest. 4) I think they might help alert squirrels and other birds and small mammals to approaching foxes, cats or raptors. I imagine they also help keep parks clean by eating up some of the leftovers people throw there, sometimes for the ducks. 1) I've never heard anyone complain much about crows where I live in the city, but apparently farmers shoot them because they say crows attack lambs etc, but if my neighbour did complain I would explain about squirrels taking more baby birds and especially domestic cats. We hardly have any snakes here. I once saw a crow attacking an injured adult magpie. It was really going for it, but the other magpies were furious and all gathered round to try to protect the injured one from the crow. I've not seen that before and found that quite interesting. People often complain about magpies here eating baby birds too.