Mark Deutschlander

I am an ornithologist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.  I study songbird migration, but as the "resident" ornithologist, questions about birds or issues with local birds are routinely brought to my attention.  One summer many years ago, a young crow had fallen into a rather deep window-well of one of our science buildings.  It was vocalizing and so some students noticed it stuck there.  They found me and showed me the bird.  The bird could clearly not get the lift it needed to fly out of this window well - it was too steep for the bird to clear the top edge.  So I climbed in to rescue the bird.  The whole time I did, the fledgling made calls (likely distress calls) and adults in the trees above made what seemed to me like aggressive calls of concern (at least that what I like to think they meant).   I got the bird out and released it (but as a bird bander, I banded it first), and during banding it continued to make calls and the whole process was observed by the adults.   After that event, for many years, when I parked on campus near the science buildings, I would get vocally harassed by one or more crows.  They clearly remembered me from the day I saved one of their kind, but I don't think they were being thankful.  I think I was being scolded for touching their family member.   Unfortunately a few years later I learned that the bird I saved was killed (shot) during the winter in downtown Geneva - likely by someone who did not enjoy the roosting birds there.  For a few years though I could easily and personally relate to Marzluff's facial recognition research first hand!