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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]