Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

Crows

Fall marks the arrival into towns and city suburbs of flocks of large, noisy Crows. Here they form roosts in favorite trees and spend the winter enjoying the relative warmth of city life (towns are, on average, about ten degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside) and scavenging roadkills and garbage making Crows another species that has accommodated itself to human presence.

Our area hosts two species of Crows - the common Crow and the slightly smaller Fish Crow - although only the common variety overwinters here. These large, extremely intelligent birds are one of numerous animal species that use culture as a survival mechanism. Information regarding food sources, predators and behavior is passed from one generation to the next since Crows (like humans) aren't born with instinctual survival knowledge and must be taught these things in order to survive.

Crows and their close relations the Bluejays have been in the news lately as the most vulnerable wild bird population for the West Nile virus. As such they're an important indicator species for the presence of this disease in any given area. Any sighting of a sick or strangely acting Crow or Bluejay should be reported at once to the nearest public health authorities.

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