2/25 - Why wouldn't it start with a crow?

It's usually a crow

I'm a birder, primarily, and I think other birders may enjoy the fact that the first on the list is the good old American Crow (1).

In birding, we keep our county lists, our state lists, etc. and of course, there is the year list. On January 1st every year, birders will post to announce their first bird of the year. We always dream that it will start with a "good" bird - either a personal favorite, something rare, or something romantic like a Great Horned Owl.

But it's usually a crow.

Efforts can be made to get outside before the crows arrive, or one could put fingers in the ears so that there's a chance of not hearing them call, but there's no guarantee here. Crows are just so ubiquitous in metropolitan areas, so boisterous, so loud. Today was no exception.

As I got the morning coffee going, I heard the call and smiled as they got me again.

The locals

It's worth noting that the crows around here have been the topic of interesting genetic discussions. It even gives me my first opportunity to throw doubt on my ability to identify things! Here is the range map from Cornell's "All About Birds" site for American Crows:

Note that they don't even show American Crow for the northwestern corner of the state! Why? Because there's these crows you find out here that may or may not be a separate species - Northwestern Crows.

My eyes and ears have told me that they're different. Big crow out in the suburbs that sounds "normal"? American Crow. Smaller crows with higher pitched voices playing around in the salt water together? Northwestern Crows. The only problem is, these birds have gotten friendly enough with each other, and the genes have gotten a bit mixed up. The fact that the genes *can* get mixed up implies that these are not two different species. So I'm going with American Crow.

A little about them

As common as they are, we tend to let crows blend into the background, but many people have taken the time to study crows, and there's a lot going on with them. They seem able to socialize, play, mourn. . all things that seem like anthropomorphizing, but it's hard to frame it any other way.

Locally, they spend the winter months gathering at large roosts (thousands of crows. . . lots of thousands of crows) for the night. In the mornings and evenings they do the commute to and from "work", with huge streams of them seen overhead.

In the summers they will stick around their nests, and they will be quite defensive of this space. There are many stories out there of crows diving at people who have gotten a little too close to a nest. My crow story is a little different.

I had a pair of crows in my neighborhood a few years back during the summer. I'd see them from the back deck, and got it in my head that I should get them a little food and see if we could be friends. A few goldfish crackers on the corner of the deck became part of the daily routine. One of the crows would come in and take them, I'd say hello, and they'd go on their merry way. One day, I had put out the crackers, and returned later to find. . . dog food!

I've tried to step through this and figure out what they were trying to do. My best and only guess is that they were saying thanks, and offering some food in return. It's an interesting observation that highlights how easily these crows found the food they needed as they scavenged through their day. What else it might say about the ability of crows to show. . . kindness? to other species. . . I will leave that up to the reader.

Also

In peeking out the window, I noted two other things outside - Bigleaf Maple (2), and Western Swordfern (3). The maple had lichen and mosses all up the trunk and hanging from the branches. That is for another morning!