Are crows launching a bird world takeover in Watsonville?

Dear JOAN: Do you know what is up with the crows this 12 months? Quite a few people today are conversing about how there are numerous a lot more crows in their neighborhoods, sometimes to the exclusion of other birds.

I am noticing this in my own space, as very well, each and every working day now. Crows have always been element of the hen populace close to listed here, but only a couple and more of an occasional fly-by. Now there are flocks of 20 to 30 birds at a time that get there daily, hover and call for quite a few minutes, then inevitably fly off, to return afterwards.

I like crows, but really should I be concerned they might be staging a coup to get above the fowl globe?

Sandy, Watsonville

Expensive SANDY: What tends to make you assume it is only the hen planet they want to acquire around?

Crows are between the smartest of birds, able to recognize faces and don’t forget them, retaining observe of all those that have completed them or their brethren incorrect and those people who have been form to them. Generally be kind to them.

They also are amazingly adaptable, in all probability significantly more so than I am. Crows the moment were being denizens of the farms, gleaning corn, wheat and other crops in the fields. Just 50 a long time ago, it was exceptional to see a crow outside a farm.

Then we started off plowing below farms and developing residences and corporations to build new communities and increase present ones.

Crows pretty rapidly transitioned from nation bumpkins to town squires, and they identified they favored it better. Developed parts present a wider wide variety of meals, and it’s much easier to find and get, thanks to garbage cans and yard gardens.

The city lifetime also fits them superior. Crows have by no means been admirers of forested locations, preferring a several trees and shrubs in a much more open up location. Our structures supply them with a lot of spots to shelter from the features, and these landscape trees we plant in our front garden make exceptional nighttime roosting spots.

In the early 1950s, the once-a-year Audubon Christmas Fowl Depend noticed a couple of dozen crows in San Jose and about that quantity in other locations of the Bay. In the Xmas 2021 fowl depend, 3,804 crows were tallied in the San Jose, Palo Alto, Mount Hamilton and Morgan Hill parts.

Sunnyvale is so fed up with the crows, they are mounting a counterattack, working with lasers to scare them absent.

Proper now, crows and other birds are in the midst of mating and chick-rearing season, which for the crows implies the birds aren’t paying out as much time together in a flock. That will transpire in the winter, when hundreds will roost and feed collectively, applying their quantities as a way to protect on their own from predators, enhance their food stuff finding likelihood and ward off the cold at evening. So if you believe you have obtained a ton of crows now, you are going to have more in six months.

The crows that you are observing now have probable found a new food items supply and are having benefit of it. Or possibly their campaign for world domination has begun.

Arrive say hi

I’ll be at Wild Birds Unlimited, 692 Contra Costa Blvd. in Pleasant Hill, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 30, for the store’s grand re-opening. Lindsay Wildlife Working experience will be there, also. Prevent by, and we’ll communicate wildlife.

Get hold of Joan Morris at [email protected].

Have a concern for Joan?

Use this type to post questions. Pics ought to be mailed separately to [email protected].