>At this time of year, one very frequently sees single crows flying low over
>the water, sometimes quite far out in the harbor, and more than one distant
>cormorant has resolved in the bins to be a crow. They seem to be constantly
>shuttling back-and-forth from their nests in Stanley Park to forage areas
in
>East Vancouver. They're the only resident land-bird which seem unperturbed
>at crossing daily stretches of water even several kilometers wide, an
>insouciance which puzzles, as there's Bald Eagles Haliaeetus leucocephalus
>here all year (a couple of nesting pairs nearby, actually, and a ton of
them
>in the winter), passage and winter-resident Peregrine Falcons Falco
>peregrinus and passage Gyrfalcon F. rusticola. No end of potential
raptorial
>threat, there.


Interesting. I wonder if the crows are relatively safe because raptors
are conditioned to believe that if they try to attack one crow, a gazillion
other screaming crows will appear out of nowhere to make their lives
miserable.

Kelly Cassidy
Seattle