But what if I were to tell you that the crows you spy in your yard are almost always the same individual crows? That those birds—usually two, a male and a female known as a territorial pair—don’t live there but fly in every day from 20 miles away? During the day urban crows rummage and build nests in a specific spot, in a specific neighborhood, then decamp for the evening to a massive, crowded roost outside the city—their own crow planet— and report back to the neighborhoods each morning. Like you, they commute to work.

They're also dicks. They will mob hawks, owls, seagulls, eagles, ravens, jays, pretty much anything that competes with them that isn't also a flock predator. The easiest way to know if there's a cool bird overhead is to listen for screaming crows attacking it. In ten years Seattle will be nothing but crows, grackles and Canada geese.

posted 2527 days ago