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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