October 12, 2008
RIVER WATCHER
THE COMING OF THE CROW CROWD
Rex Burress
During the noon hour at Pleasant Valley High School in
Chico, I noticed flocks of crows evidently anticipating lunch time. Every
curved parking-lot light fixture was filled, each light holding about eight
crows, a vantage point they used as a lookout for half-eaten sandwiches and the
plentiful student food scraps.
Crows flock together in the fall and pilfer whatever food
source they can find. Yuba City, CA has previously been the "crow
capital" of the region, much to the disgust of orchard owners, crop growers,
and garbage dump operators. It takes a lot of fuel to keep that army of birds
on the wing, and about anything fruity or meaty is consumed by Corvus
brachyrhynchos.
Crows may be the most recognizable and widespread of
America’s nearly 700 species of birds. Unlike the scavenging gull family where
each species looks different, a crow is plain black, like its larger black kin,
the raven. There is no mistaking that "caaw, caaw, caaw" voice as
being crow, however.
For a good closeup acquaintance with a crow, take a look at
the amicable, wing-injured caged character at the Chico Creek Nature Center.
You can even scratch its head if you want to take a chance of being nipped by a
sharp strong beak! There were confined crows and ravens at the Rotary Nature Center
in Oakland that would say "all right" and "hello baby," as
they are mimic birds and can copy sounds they hear repeatedly. In rural areas,
it has been a belief that by splitting the tongue they can talk, but that is
more likely to kill the bird.
For those who knew crows in mid America, such as the winter
flock in "Floyd’s Timber" near our rural Missouri farm in the 1940's,
autumn, cornfields, ripe apples, hunting, frosty mornings, and crows added a
distinctive flavor to the changing seasons. You could hear the woodlands
ringing with their raucous behavior, especially if they spotted an owl in its
daytime hiding place. There were no qualms in shooting a few crows to disrupt
their gatherings or corn-field pilfering.
Crows walk around fields with a human-like stride as if they
are displaying their proud and bossy demeanor rather than hopping like robins
and sparrows. I once rescued a wing-crippled crow as a boy, and kept it in my
fur-shed, tossing it pieces of meat I would flesh off the muskrat, coon, and skunk
skins. "Croaker" did no damage to the furs, and it finally recovered
to be set free, since I had attached a certain fondness for the clever
creature. Crows are intelligent birds, and adaptable, witness their adjustment
to living near towns and farms, one of the few species to actually benefit from
wildland displacement.
The thick-billed raven, Corvus corax, is much more
solitaire, generally found alone or with a small group, less inclined to mingle
among mankind but would rather retreat to mountainous areas or even the desert.
There they glean enough game and fruit to live an independent life.
Know that autumn is in the air when the frost is on the
pumpkin and crows are in the field...in spite of scare-crow dummies stationed
to scare the crop-eating bird in black!
"Quote the raven; ‘Nevermore.’" –Edgar Allen Poe
"A whitewashed crow soon shows black again."
–Chinese proverb