Jerry et al,

Though I don't believe in the Northwestern Crow I can't quite get rid of
the lurking suspicion that perhaps I'm just not paying close enough
attention on have not trained my ear sufficiently to pick out the
difference. I take comfort in the fact that most of my birding
colleagues agree with me and from the fact that when I find myself in DC
I have no trouble picking out Fish Crows and when in Mexico the Sinaloa
and Tamaulipas Crows seem a world apart. Clearly the Northwestern Crows
are not comparably distinctive whatever their ultimate taxonomic fate.

Gene Hunn.

On Tue, 22 Aug 1995 Jerry_Tangren at tfrec.ncw.net wrote:

> The whole crow situation is a case that points out the need to take good
> field notes on even the common species (in my case what you can't do you
> teach). Johnston work is probably now out of date as the crow "problem" has
> been quickly developing over the past 30 years or so (probably within Gene
> Hunn's time as a Washingtonian).
>
> Just in the last 3 years or so, Wenatchee crows have become urbanized.
> Formerly they were just in the riparian zones and principally in the
> summer. Now we have them all year around in town.
>
> Before they moved into town, I listed both Northwestern and American Crows
> on my Chelan Co. list on the basis that our summer crows appeared smaller
> than our winter crows. In comparison to the summer birds, the winter birds
> looked like ravens! I felt that if the AOU regarded them as separate
> species, then ANY indication of Northwestern blood was good enough to tally
> (speaking as a lister rather than as a biologist).
>
> However, I am no longer observing that difference. The winter birds are now
> similar to the summer, and urbanized birds. What has happened? Did a
> different population move into the Wenatchee area? Or has the urban ecology
> of Wenatchee changed sufficiently to support crows when before it couldn't?
> Do I know what a raven looks like? We don't have good notes on the before
> picture. What questions should we be asking for the after?
>
> Does the change in the Wenatchee crows fit into the bigger picture of
> change in the Pacific Northwest?
>
> Jerry Tangren
> Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center
> Washington State University, Wenatchee
> e-mail (try in order):
> jerry_tangren at tfrec.ncw.net
> tangren at coopext.cahe.wsu.edu
> gsw$en at wsuvm1.csc.wsu.edu
>
>
>