OHIO-BIRDS Archives

January 2008

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From:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:09:25 -0500
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Laura & all--
        Crows start roosting together at night in November. Christmas bird
counts can be good indicators of locations and numbers of big roosts,
some of which have existed for generations. You can see birds in the
tens of thousands arriving at dusk and departing at dawn in big urban
roosts in Cincinnati, Springfield, and Mansfield. Roosts in excess of
two million birds have been recorded, though not in Ohio. Frank Renfrow
wrote an intriguing article on the Cincinnati roost in the Ohio Cardinal
seven years ago, where he estimated mid-winter roosts there at perhaps
70,000 birds, and traced this ancestral assemblage to the name of the
famous Rookwood Pottery works. Last winter's CBCs included estimates
from Springfield of 20,000 and from Mansfield of 15,000. There are many
smaller roosts around the state. These birds usually start assembling at
staging areas an hour or sobefore sundown, then converge on the roost as
it grows dark. You can learn a lot about this phenomenon, and about the
fascinating lives of crows, at Kevin McGowan's web site at
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/crowinfo.htm .
Bill Whan
Columbus

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