14
Aug

15 crows in the backyard!

That is a whole lot of crows!  At least for us.  The most we have ever had is 5 and the usual number is 3.  And to have them in our backyard at this time of year is rare.

American Crow in one of the trees of our backyard. Photo by Avery Cleon Spence.

These are American Crows and live in the vast woodland across the lake from us.  We often hear them cawing.  We can have a few in our trees in winter, but have only seen them on the ground under the feeders a handful of times in the 20 years we have lived here.  So imagine my surprise when I heard so much ‘Cawing’, looked outside my window, and counted.  15!  And if you were watching the birdfeeder cam, you probably saw several, and you most certainly heard them because they were loud.

Crows have social lives that are a bit unusual in the world of birds.  The family instinct is strong.  These birds do not breed until they are 2-3 years old and will stay in a loose flock with their parents and siblings until then.  When you see a a dozen or so crows together, you can be sure they are all probably related.  If one does leave the family flock to mate and raise a family, but loses its mate, it will often go back to the family flock for a time.

Even though it is still August, many birds are starting to prepare for winter.  They are gathering in flocks to start migration, or they are beginning to move around to establish a winter foraging territory.  Except for crows living in the northern parts of our northern states and Canada who do migrate south, many crows do not migrate and are either residents for their entire lives where they were born, or will move in any direction to establish their lives.  Regardless of whether they migrate, stay put, or have decided to move to a new place, this is the time of year they gather together to establish their winter flocks which can be a few dozen birds up to thousands and thousands.  These flocks most often disperse during the day, but each flock will come together at night to roost.  Some of these flocks have been using the same roosts for many years.

I took this photo on a street in our town. These are crows starting to come to their night-time roost. When I took this photo, it was about an hour before sunset so I am guessing this flock will become large. Possibly a hundred birds or more. That is a lot of birds for trees along the street of a small town. And remember, these crows are big. loud birds. I wonder what their human neighbors think? Since our town newspaper has never reported on these birds, and no one has ever written into the editorial page, I am assuming crows and people are peacefully co-existing. At least I hope so!

The crows here in our neighborhood roost across the lake in the trees of that woodland.  Our resident flock is not large.  My guess is it never numbers over 30 birds.  And we do get a few crows from this flock from time to time in fall and winter, foraging in our back yard.  But to have 15 here – all at once – well, that was such a rare treat!  And I enjoyed every minute of their cawing to each other, and all their interactions with each other.  But sadly, as I type the last word this morning, they have moved on.  I can hear a caw or two way off in the distance, but their visit is over.  Like all good guests, they came, they chatted, had something to eat, and knew when it was time to leave.