Greetings, fellow birders! Announcing a new website www.crowroosts.org <http://www.crowroosts.org/> that I hope will be of interest and use!
As some of you are aware, we have an ongoing study of crow roosts as sources of nitrogen and agents of changes in N-cycling. Crow roosts are seen as creating “hot spots and hot moments” of N input. Anyone whose backyard has hosted a crow roost of any size will appreciate those terms. The study is in collaboration with my ecosystem ecology colleague Dr. Weixing Zhu and our graduate student Ben Eisenkop. One of our goals is to identify locations of crow roosts (from the barely noticeable of ca. 50 to the obvious 50K+ birds) and get some idea of their distribution, number, and location across NY State in this and ensuing winters. Our website above provides information on roosts, but also invites everyone to fill in a form about any known roost. We have collaborated with the Lab of Ornithology’s YardMap to link a group mapping activity, so everyone can map the kind of trees, shrubs, water sources, etc where crows are roosting. Our goal is to quantify the habitat characteristics of roost sites, which we can then compare with surrounding areas they aren’t using. I hope those on the list will note such roosting activity and participate by reporting the site…or if feeling particularly lazy, contact me (Anne Clark) that you know of such a site and we will check it out! Best wishes for a bird-filled holiday in this peculiarly warm and perhaps low-roosting year! The Crow Research Group-ees -- 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/ --
