Andy Avram makes good points about the larger issues. In the really big
picture, we don't have to look much farther than the most recent ice age
to see some really big changes. Those who score points by appealing to
folks wishing only to add to their bird lists may get more hits on their
blogs by doing so, but I think most listers will acknowledge that the
risk of disturbing the only known nest in the state of a heretofore
unacknowledged species is real, and should not be encouraged. I don't
recall anyone egging birders on to witness the first Ohio nest in a long
time of another corvid, the common raven, just a few years ago. In fact,
the Division of Wildlife kept the location secret from the birding
public---but then they allowed the area to be logged the following year.
To Laura Gooch's salient remarks on crows on the Lakefront I would only
add that for decades, and well before West Nile, crows have seemed
scarce along our side of Lake Erie, especially out west. The only time
we see lots of them is during migration when many are seen moving along
the Lake; otherwise, those of us from farther south marvel at how few
crows we see up there. Laura has done some commendable research on the
American crow in the region, and it remains to be seen whether others
will add to our knowledge or merely to their lists.
Haans is right to remind us about really lethal threats. No doubt
humans brought pileated woodpeckers closer to extirpation, in part
because the birds were widely hunted and sold. Karl Maslowski recalled
that related “large bunches could be seen hanging from storefronts”
throughout the 1800s in Cincinnati. Trautman, however offered another
explanation. He believed its extirpations preceded wholesale
destructions of its habitat, and actually suggested a mutation in about
1920 may have allowed it to modify its feeding and nesting habits,
enabling it to recover. Without getting into genetics, pileateds had
adapted to unbroken forest habitats, and he surmised that breaking up
the habitat via agriculture was enough to bring them toward the brink,
and that some pileateds adapted to flying over open land between large
woodlots and survived by adopting new behaviors.
Certainly, crows and other corvids have adapted successfully. Moseley
recorded that sixty years years ago, "when shells were provided to Crow
hunters by the state, Max Kempker of Toledo shot between six and eight
thousand of these pests each year.” I don't think anyone will disagree
that crows are intelligent wary birds; I doubt, with Haans, that mere
human attention would cause mortality among fish crows, but it could
well discourage them, and only, as I said, "delay their
occupations...all for self-gratification." Nowhere did I say any real
damage to fish crows on the population level would result.
I can't resist one disagreement. Haans writes "Andy rehashes excellent
points which have been discussed on multiple
occasions in the forum over the years." I think real discussion is
distinctly rare here. Ohio-birds is a singularly solipsistic forum, with
little evidence that folks listen to one another. Our little discussion
here, it seems to me, is a rare event.
Bill Whan
Columbus
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