Angela

@Beverly Starlings are smaller than crows, although it can be hard to judge size from a distance.  Starlings have short tails and quick wingbeats.  They have tan spots all over, which are particularly prominent in winter, but are present year-round.  Cornell’s All About Birds page has tips on identifying starlings - as well as other birds.

The pie chart of baby bird mortality is misleading.  “Snakes” is a suborder-level taxon and “Squirrels” is a family-level taxon, while “American crow” is a single species.  Of course the number of baby birds eaten by every possible species of snake is higher than the number eaten by a single species of bird. A more accurate comparison would be to break down the “snake,” “squirrel,” and other groupings into individual species and see where the American crow ranks on that list.  Alternatively, “American crow” and “jays” could be grouped together as “Corvidae” and compared to “snakes,” “squirrels,” and the rest.  The exact numbers aren’t provided on the chart, but “Corvidae” would probably fall between insects and small birds as a cause of nestling mortality - not the largest cause, but not trivial either.

I was surprised that this lesson seemed to imply that the extra-pair matings were initiated by the female “fooling around with the neighbors.”  In a previous talk, Dr. McGowan proposed that these extra-pair matings were most likely forced copulation events.  I am wondering if the change was due to new data from Dr. Townsend, or if they were just trying to make the course less disturbing for people (like me) who have a tendency to anthropomorphize crow behavior.

I am apparently very good at identifying crows from ravens if they are right next to each other, are completely still, and I can put my face 6 inches away from them. I think I am good at telling them apart in the field as well, but with no one to correct me, how would I know if I were mistaken?  I think the voices of crows and ravens are very distinctive, as are the tails if they are flying overhead.