My girlfriend, Emily, and I had a group of 5 Common Ravens at Calverton Executive Airpark this morning, while we were about half-way down the runway.
All 5 seemed to be travelling together (perhaps a pair and some recently fledged young?). We first noticed 2 in the trees, and 3 on the runway. While our initial instinct had us calling them crows, we were struck by how large they looked. Closer looks through the scope revealed much heavier bills and wedge shaped tails (on at least some - one of them appeared to be missing most of its rectrices). Unfortunately they flew away over the treeline north of the runway before we could get close enough for pictures, but as they flew they began calling, and were very clearly ravens - relatively high-pitched, drawn-out croaks. We briefly heard them calling again later as we were walking the trail from the west end of the runway north to the ball-fields. eBird checklist here: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S18853137 Michael Schrimpf Sound Beach -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
