Autumn

1. Many. In fall, they'll congregate in the large courtyard of the college. The courtyard is empty of all trees, except one black cottonwood near the center, next to a couple playground area. Before the kids arrive, they'll cover the playground. 15 of them. Then a few scattered across the green field in small groups of 2-4. I'll see maybe 20 birds easily in those small groups along the grounds that aren't in trees. The area is lined with various other trees and plants (cottonwood, spruce, vegetation breaking down from the summer), that are not being taken into account. During the winter, though.. I lived in a house where the property was lined with spruce trees. A commercial dumpster (for the church next door) was right next to the property... Sometimes people forgot to close the lid..... and, my roommate would feed left over vegetable scraps to the local rabbits outside.. anyways.. There would be 30-50 crows, on the rail of the stairs, covering the steps, covering the snow cover ground (pecking away near the spruce roots), all the way to the dumpster... and finding all sorts of trouble in there. 2. Yes. Black capped chickadees were fond of those trees. I'd see easily 12 of them torpedoing through the sky. Not 50.. Maybe 20.. Tree swallows, too, I've seen those in pretty large flocks. They *cover* Valdez in the early summer. I've seen plenty of flocks of ducks and geese, most recently (two weeks ago) I counted a flock of 70 mallards in the Port of Valdez.. not sure if this is asking for consideration to water fowl... but it was real neat..

1. I would first empathize for their love of baby songbirds... then gently inform them: a Jay is more likely to kill those birds than crows.. Squirrels are the reeeaaaal culprits, there!   2. I saw many American Crows living in Florida. I am now in southcentral Alaska and... we have much, much larger crows. Tons of them, too. They like to play with my dog.. I could.. look for... nests.. of Northwestern crows.. I've seen many eyries, but I'll look closer for smaller nests... 3. Although not American crows, I can observe Northwestern crows and ravens (Valdez, AK.. fairly remote). Crows are in town/closer to the harbor, interactive/friendly, and travel in larger groups. Although there are some ravens that come into town, they are usually alone and keep their distance from people (although.. the ravens in Anchorage are bold- not friendly). As far as Valdez, there amount of ravens increase as you head out of town/into the mountains. As far as interaction goes.. I've had plenty of adorable experiences with the crows. Last winter I had baked cornbread muffins before work to share.. As I walked to work, I was stalked by this one crow. The crow kept flying just ahead of me, landing, then made eye contact. I spoke to it like, "hey man, these muffins are for ma work mates." After a while, the crow- instead of landing on fixtures ahead of me- started to swoop in just ahead of my walking path, flying away before we intersected. Eventually I gave him a muffin.. breaking it up a bit along the path.. very charming bird. During the summer, when I first brought my adopted dog home (he's a husky, might be mixed with coyote... he's from the bush...), another interesting instance occurred with a crow. While walking, this crow lands on the fence, a little over eye level to me but not even 2 feet away, and starts cawing at my dog. Didn't even look at me, just starts talking up a storm to my dog. I had never experienced this before, so naturally I try shooing the bird away, but the crow stays there.. cawing. I later learned that crows and wolves/coyotes have a strong relationship in the wild.. and that crows really like playing with dogs, in general.. In comparison, I have zero stories like this about ravens. They get uncomfortable whenever I've tried to get close (very easily done with crows), but! I've had some luck making calls back to them. If they are high up in a tree, making their cool noises and such, I'll make the noises back. Either they will fly away/ignore me OR they will keep making noises/changing them up. They always keep their distance, though. It was difficult telling the difference, as these Northwestern crows are large. They do share similar traits with American crows, like the rounded tail feathers, pointier beaks/less rounded than ravens.. It will be much more easier to differentiate them now.   4. Wolves and coyotes benefit from crows. They will alert them to predators and, in turn, the dogs will share the meat of their kill. They kill off pests, which is great for us humans. To be honest, I'm not sure who else benefits from them.. As for birds, they do like picking on the bald eagles. I've seen a bald eagle land on a large, black cottonwood in my yard.. the tree had 2 crows initially. A few moments pass, a few more crows land in the tree. When the sixth crow landed, the eagle was visibly nervous and flew off.. dipped his soar about 6 feet above our heads, breathtaking. I suppose the crows intimidating the eagle out of the neighborhood could potentially help protect other nests in the area.. The property was lined with spruce trees and houses many songbirds year round. Maybe the crows were just protecting their grounds..