Something to Crow About

Who would you pick to win a popularity contest for birds in our area as a matter of fact just about anywhere in N.Y. State? My guess it wouldn’t be Mr. Crow right. Well why not. I think some of us may be intimated by his intelligence. Even if we had feathers and wings few of us would be clever enough to be Crows. They remind us of some of the people we don’t like perhaps some of the traits that we don’t like to perceive in ourselves. Crows are clever and boisterous and have a penchant for getting themselves in trouble. There is no place you can go down town along the river, in the fields in the woods or even in your back yard that a crow will not show up in a few minuets. Our local crow (common Crow) is the most obvious to us but he has a smaller cousin the Fish Crow. Our fish Crow may be only 10% of the local population. As we drift in the McDonald’s area you are likely to see more. If you shop at Oneonta you will notice that both the Fish Crow and the Wal-Mart gulls (Ring Billed Gulls) prefer Wal-Mart’s 3 to 1 over other Shopping malls. Actually Fish Crows prefer marshy or low lying places to live these other areas they show up at non breeding times they are more or less slumming. Our crow has never had a easy time of it he has been persecuted like forever. Any bird or animal that competes with us for food (the only good crow is a dead crow) philosophy Farmers in general still have no great liking for crows. From working a couple of years on a dairy farm on Long Island what damage to the corn at least was not as bad as the hired help caused to the crops? That however is another story.

Apparently there is still a lot to learn about crows every thing you read brings up more questions than answers. From fall through winter crows gather in large (noisy) flocks. They have a habit of gathering in large communal roosts. They return to the same spot each night and may fly to the roost along certain established flight lines. If you are on one of these preroosting spots 50 to 150 or more gather before heading to the primary roost that may have 10,000 or more by night fall. Every thing I have read or seen first hand still intrigues scientists on the ultimate purpose of these gatherings. They chase each other do aerial acrobatics and spend most of the night jus t babbling with each or. It to me seems a down time or just a general get together to talk over old times. Like did I ever tell you why the scarecrow got hit by a freight train? These roosts might be a sort of protection or safety in numbers thing... However The Great Horned Owls should have easy pickings at those roosts but maybe the mass confusion may be a
Good thing undoubtedly the owls have success at these roosts. The mobbing the Owls get when they are discovered in the daytime by the crows gives you a good clue.. Several years ago a Midwest group of townspeople and farmers insisted the government do something about something about the crows. They did something alright. They attached dynamite bombs to the trees in the roost in the daytime. Then at night they set off the bombs when all the crows were back. They annihilated 328,000 crows Of course dealing with mankind safety in numbers means very the entire season of crows in that state...
In a few states they still allow crow hunting with no limits or rules I think several states will not allow cruise missiles tanks with greater than 188 mm cannons against the crows but every thing else is legal.

My best friend and I took up hunting on Long Island I think in 3 years I shot one duck (I’m sorry I didn’t really mean it)..My friend was more of a hunter than I however we had very little luck when we went together? I was to into bird watching to hunt and bird watch at the same time. My friend Ray and I had lived across the street from each other from the time I was four in 1934. We have done so many things together and there is more than a good book in there. Not to change the subject but we both were great conservationists at a time when ecology was in the back page of a. unknown book somewhere. If there was a law against doing something against nature we knew what it was and we sometimes made some enemies.

On long Island Crows had no friends but us. Ray and I had worked on two dairy farms in 1951 and two vegetable farms in 1952 and 1953... Even at that time we were not naive enough to assume that crows were not to blame for their own transgressions. Some of our camping excursions took us where no man has gone before. By the time we took up hunting we were pretty well new where Crows and we fit in. Guess what (we are the Crows) Humans are so like the Crows its scary Mr. Crow giving the chance will become an opportunist and will grab what he can when he can and keep a sense of humor while doing it. Before I hang up this Crows lamp there was an experiment that we tried while we were camping and hiking... This spot was actually (eventually became a state park) Orient State park. We were at the time 1951-1952 the only people that camped there. I don’t think it was legal to go past the no trespassing sign. It was a good Three and a half miles to the end. To us it was easier because we landed on the point by boat and pulled it up in the reeds and kept it well hid there were boats that patrolled from Orient Point to the end of the park then around that point it was about 16 miles round trip. We knew it took them about two hours to get back our position. We usually had the Place to ourselves. If they saw any boat land they would kick them off. We always got there before dawn and left before Dark. We were lucky to have had been able to spend as much time with nothing to bother us. It seemed to us it was like having our own island. The deer at the time were the last deer on Long Island... I think the fox on this lonely spit of land was getting to friendly or we were becoming just part of the scenery.... Ray had to go back to the boat to find something. I was pretty tired and was looking for a place to sit the whole area was mostly Poison Ivy it grew over everything. It even climbed over some of the smaller trees. The whole area was heavy brush mostly Poison ivy it even covered some of the smaller trees, the tallest trees on the point were maybe 15 ft tall but likely 75 to a hundred years old. The wind and salt air kept all the trees low to the ground... I pushed myself up on the strongest looking branch and leaned back against the trunk this left my feet about two and a half ft off the ground... I might have dozed off for a minute…But something woke me there was something coming towards me. And through the brush appeared a red Fox about 15 ft from me. He had his nose to the ground going back and forth. He seemed in no hurry when he got about 5 ft from me I became comatose and couldn’t move .The fox didn’t show he noticed me at all but when the long fur on his tail brushed the back of my leg I sort of felt faint, he just kept on his merry way deep into the nice pretty poison ivy. When Ray got back about 10 minuets later he asked what was wrong and a few minuets later asked me how come I couldn’t speak English any more. I took a while to say (Duh) flx nrlly fted. Thte mgt watr bshs w. tail... (it took me awhile to explain myself but it was pretty exciting. Anyway it made my day.

P.S. tune in for crows no.2 what experiment did we try on Mr. Crow.
Crows are great comedians some true local funny crows.
How we fought the farmers for equal rights for Crows?


Bill Reeves