I plan to pay more attention to where I see Crows in the city the next time I go there. This was a really good course to help me understand more about Crows. I'll return to it after the next time I have a group of Crows come to my local area. Thanks.
As a point, I read the "caution" about the video and chose not to watch it. Reading the description was difficult enough. I have a very active imagination so decided to forgo the video. I don't want to see "Crows" as anything but "interesting, intelligent" birds. I'm glad you put the "caution" there.
I've never seen any Crow who looked like it was anything but a healthy Crow in my local area. I've also not seen any aggression between the Crows in my area. That was a very disturbing story, both about losing the foot and the "murder" of Crow on Crow. The one more positive note was that the Crows who lost a foot were able to survive and move on with their life.
I was surprised that there was inbreeding among the American Crow population, especially the mother son inbreeding. The threat to the Crows from the inbreeding could be that there are genetic problems like deformities that could cause early death for some Crows. I would imagine the "extra-pair" fertilization would be helpful in maintaining the population of Crows, but, again, I have concerns about the above mentioned problems of inbreeding.
It seems that Crows have a somewhat easier time getting to be a breeder with all the options available to them. However, if you happen to be the only female juvenile bird in a family of males bird siblings your chances of getting to be a breeder seems more difficult since the males are dominate over the females.
I'v seen some Crows roosting near our home but they tend not to stay and go some place to spend time. I think one deterrent may be that we have an Owl that I hear at night so that may be one reason the Crows don't stay. We do have a stream out back and that may be one thing to attract them to our area. I get excited when I seen a large group of Crows coming into our area. Now I'll be even more excited since I want to study them more closely.
I'm not that confident in my ability to identify the American Crow yet. However, I always look at the beak and the tail feathers when I see a Crow. The beak on the Crow seems less pointed and "chubbier" than the beak a lot of black birds have.
You bought up a good point about the binoculars. The pair I have aren't; that good for seeing and identifying birds, or maybe it's my inability. I'm going to try to get a good powerful set of binoculars. Thanks for bring that to mind.
Thanks for that nice picture. I've also noticed that Crows can really relate to each other. It must have been nice to have that pair visit you frequently.
1. I would educate my neighbor that Crows are at the bottom of the scale for song birds nestlings. I'd let him/her know that Snakes, Squirrels and Chipmunks all eat more songbird nestlings than Crows do.
2. I've seen a lot of Crows flying over my house here in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Maybe now I can look for features to help me identify the, accurately.
3. It doesn't appear that I live where Ravens are common year round. If I see something that I think may be a Raven I'll know now to look to see if it has "diamond shaped tail," and I'll look to see if it has a long beak.
4. I've noticed that Crows "announce" their presence, and that may be helpful to letting songbirds and Squirrels know when possible "danger" may be around. Other birds may benefit from the Crows ability to hunt for food and letting other birds know where the food is.