Tweets,
Dr. John Marzluff is a prof. in Wildlife Science in the College of Forest
Resources at the UW. I am currently working in his lab. As many of you may
know the lab has banded crows at places like Rattlesnake Lake, Discovery
Park, St. Edwards, Campus. Reports of these birds should go to the
website, it can be found under the links in the Birding in Cascadia web
page that so many of us look at from time to time. I know I mentioned it
once before but I will mention it again this time with much better
clarification. If anybody knows of the location of crow roosts in the
Greater Seattle area or the direction that "large" numbers are flying to a
roost please let me know and I will pass it along. A couple of
clarifications:
Greater Seattle area: South Snohomish County to South Center. East to
Snoqualmie Pass and west to the Sound.
Large numbers: Hundreds to thousands are typically the size of crow
roosts. As an example the one on Foster Island is around 15,000.
We need the following info in the post:
Location of observation
Directions to the roost or if only seeing them fly then directions they
are flying including morning or evening.
Estimate of number of birds

In another project, the one I'm working on; the lab is looking at the
effects of urbanization on songbirds and are trying to create a fact flyer
that demonstrates what can be done to help promote native somgbird nesting
in an urban setting. Once these are ready I will take them to the WOS
meeting in Seattle and SAS meeting in hopes of giving people an
opportunity to see some of our findings so far.
Thanks,

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA

"Birds don't read bird books. (That's why they are seen doing things they
are not supposed to do)." -Mary Wood


On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, Lydia Gaebe wrote:

> Hi Tweets,
>
> Did any of you catch Dr.. John Marzluff (spelling?) on Peter Weissbach's
> show on KVI?
>
> One caller shared a wild story about a crow who visited his family shortly
> after a beloved family member died suddenly. The family was gathered at the
> caller's home when a flock of crows appeared. One bird left the flock and
> walked to the caller's van and just hung out, checked out the man's van.
> The crow allowed the man and the young children to stroke it and play with
> it. The crow never showed any aggression toward the man or the children.
> The man said there were other adults interacting with the bird. "Dr., Crow"
> was very interested in this story, as he had heard several other tales like
> the one shared by the caller.
>
> This sounds more like Art Bell stuff, doesn't it? Another caller told of
> a crow that figured out where his family moved to and hung out at their new
> home.
>
> "Dr.. Crow" has a web site, but forgot it and Weissbach ran out of time.
> He's interested in having folks contact him if the observe his banded crows
> in the area.
>
> The next time I encounter a crow, I'll say "hello", and I'll bet it
> understands me.
> Lydia In Kent, WA
> ***********************
> Talk Radio?
> Just think of it as Interactive Auditory People Watching,
> and enjoy!
>
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