Tom

All of the characters reduced into one form: that of crow. Gestalt!

Birding by sound is a challenge for me, unless it's a species that I encounter very frequently. Any tips for learning by ear? Happy birding!

This brought a smile to my face. Thanks.

1. Your neighbor is complaining about the American Crows killing all the songbird nestlings.  What would you say to him/her? One of the findings of a meta-analysis of nest predators was that squirrels and snakes are far more likely to prey on songbird nestlings than crows, which ranked almost last, just above white-tailed deer.  Also, crows are technically songbirds because they are members of Passeriformes, so the net impact on songbirds as a group is zero if a crow preys on songbird nestlings. 2. Where have you seen American Crows?  Based on what you learned in this lesson, see if you can locate a crow’s nest (keeping a respectful distance) and share what you found. I see crows everywhere there is human development. There are several crow territories on the university campus near my home. Every nesting season, the birds harass people as they pass through their territories. It's always startling to feel them hit your head, but also thrilling. 3. You’ve seen the range map for the American Crow.  Here is the range map for Common Ravens. Do you live where there are both species?  If so, can you now distinguish between them? What differences have you noticed in their behavior? There is overlap where I live in Seattle, but I have only seen ravens on one occasion, which coincidentally was today. On very first sight, I id'd the pair of ravens as hawks due to wingspan and shape, but realized they were ravens from color and bill shape/size as they flew closer. I was lucky enough to see ravens regularly when I lived in Southern California, and it was always easy to tell from crows by the fact that they were more often in open natural spaces, soaring and in pairs, whereas crows more often use powered flight and are in more developed areas. 4. What birds and other animals might benefit from having crows around? Why? How? Crows make it very well-known when a raptor is around and even drive them off, so anything that might be taken as a prey item by any kind of raptor benefits from having crows around. Owls, such as GHOW who do not construct their own nests, also benefit from crows by using their old nests. Parasites also benefit from the social behavior of crows as behaviors like allopreening provide dispersal opportunities.