Crow love

Jean Held writes to me about how the crows are 'taking over' Sag Harbor and she wonders if they could be responsible for the 'decrease in smaller birds' that we all have observed. She mentions a drop in the number of nesting Common Grackles, something I've also noticed. Perhaps this is due to competition with American Crow but it's hard to prove and, in any case, we still have lots of grackles. The American Crow is a native species, Common Grackles are not that deeply in trouble, and the smaller birds that have suffered the biggest declines are mostly neo-tropical migrants -- warblers, thrushes, vireos and the like. Crows are not likely to be major culprits in most of these cases.

I will say that until a few years ago, American Crows were common nesters on Pine Neck but not on our side of Weesuck Creek. Any Corvus brachyrhynchos that was bold enough to try and cross the creek to our side was met by squadrons of RAF fighters in the guise of Red-winged Blackbirds. It really was like the Battle of Britain. As soon as the Crows started to come across, you could guarantee that the Red-wings would rise up out of the marsh to attack and drive off them off. The Red-wings had the trick of getting above their nemesis and dive-bombing them repeatedly until they turned around and went back. But, alas, it didn't work forever and, although, our Red-wings still attack marauding Crows, they now have to deal with local nesting birds; the crows eventually -- inevitably I suppose -- eventually got established on our side.

Yesterday morning, before the rains closed in, I had the chance to observe a pair of crows in a grove of pines and oaks just off our right-of-way on Foster Crossing. I believe that these birds, although largely silent, are Fish Crows. Both of them seemed to have a rather shiny glossy black plumage and somewhat slim bills with a hook at the end. One bird was noticeably smaller and sleeker than the other. The larger bird had a ruffled collar -- throat and neck feathers fluffled up -- and the smaller bird was nibbling at the ruffled ruff of the larger bird. Looked to me like crow love!

This is the area where I heard Fish Crow calls quite regularly a little earlier this spring and I think one of these birds at least was the caller -- perhaps a male who eventually attracted a female. You might imagine that Fish Crows should be down by the water but on Long Island, in my experience at least, they are usually back from the water and often nest in isolated pairs. Fish Crows are a southwestern species and, like many southern species, they have colonized Long Island relatively recently. My guess is that they found the Common Crow well entrenched on all shore areas so they may have adapted by choosing nest sites away from Common Crow agglomerations.

Eric Salzman