>
>I have been watching and listening closely to north Olympic Peninsula
>crows this spring and summer, particularly to their voices, and I believe
>that there are two voice morphs of crows around here. Whether they are
>distinct species, I don't know, but the differences are commonly clear.
>

Seriously or not (I have yet to decide), I subscribe to the six different
Washington State morphs analysis. We have just about that many different
situations in which the NW Crows and Am Crows have met.

Here in Wenatchee we recently (in the last ten years) switched from one
("small crows present mainly in summer, and then in the riparian zones") to
another ("larger crows all year around in town"). My feelings (and based
only on feelings) is that not too many years ago we had genes from the
coast mixing with birds inland. Now we have inland birds mixing with
coastal birds.

However, I believe I can safely say the entire complex in Washington State
is presently evolving quite rapidly. It's too bad we don't have hard core
characteristics we can standardize on and decently document the phenomena.
I'm trying to think how to describe it, but has the "crackkkk" call of the
NW Crow ever been also attributed to the Am Crow. That's the only criteria
I've ever tried to use.







Jerry Tangren <tangren at wsu.edu>