I mentioned seeing my first of season ‘big’ crow assemblage at the CBC meeting last week, of about 100 American Crows doing small wheelies in a large group swirling over my house (I first thought it was gulls, in fact).
Over the last week, I’ve seen similar numbers streaming over at dusk, probably from Lansing corn fields to Ithaca/Northeast area. This morning, I had a bird-a-palooza at 645AM while walking the dog. As I stepped out, the cawing was loud, continuous, and numerous. Looking up in early dawn against gray overcast, I estimated 200 AMCRs swirling and attacking about 16 Turkey Vultures (this is unusual, of course). The TVs were clearly not enjoying this at all, and probably saying “Mellow out, dudes! What’s up with this?”. But crows were hitting the TVs and small groups chasing individual TVs around in a giant swirling mass of black wings. The illusion of a WWII bomber-fighter sky battle came to mind. I suspect that the crows were roosting in the same trees around Asbury Cemetery as the TVs have used for several years, and both groups woke up about the same time, probably when a near-sighted crow with a short temper jumped the first TV by accident thinking it was one of those ‘other’ raptors it should be attacking, then the cascade began of more crows joining in and more TVs freaking out and going from tree to sky only to be attacked themselves. Just my hypothesis. ChrisP ______________________ Chris Pelkie Information/Data Manager; IT Support Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
