Category Archives: Crows & Ravens

Help Me Find Pittsburgh’s Winter Crows

Books & Events, Crows & Ravens
Crows gathering at dusk in Schenley Park, 21 Jan 2017 (photo by Mike Fialkovich)

5 December 2022

For the past several years I’ve counted Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock for the Christmas Bird Count. Some years I’ve counted as many as 20,000 but last year was a bust. Steady rain, fog, and the fact that the crows moved their roost just before the CBC meant I counted only 220. Aaarrg!

I will not be foiled again this year but I need your help. Where are the crows settling for the night? If you know where they are overnight or after sunset, leave a comment to let me know.

I say “overnight or after sunset” because crows make a big noisy deal out of gathering in large numbers on their way to the roost. Hundreds stage at the tops of trees and shout as more come in. When the sky darkens, they fall silent and leave. For where? That’s the question!

Where are they roosting? (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Last weekend I tried to find them. By 5:00pm on Saturday 3 December I was sure I’d found the roost by watching from Mt Washington at the Mon Incline (my vantage point is the pink V on the map below). Crows staged in the trees in The Saddle on Sycamore Street, then left for a tree-filled hillside near Kirkpatrick Street below Oak Hill, marked in yellow 12/3/22. I counted about 7,500.

Yesterday I went back to Mt. Washington, confident they’d do the same thing and I was wrong! They didn’t gather in the The Saddle; they didn’t roost at Kirkpatrick. Instead they gathered in the Hill District above Bigelow Boulevard. I could barely count 2,000. As I drove home I saw thousands over Bigelow Boulevard but couldn’t count while driving. Aaarrg! My guess at their location is marked in yellow 12/4/22.

Did they end up near Heinz Lofts along the Allegheny River or on Troy Hill as they did a few years ago? (See orange blocks and question mark.)

Locations of Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock on Dec 3 & 4, 2022 at 5pm (mark up screenshot from Google Maps satellite view)

This year Claire Staples and I will count crows together for the CBC on 31 December but I fear the crows will foil us again.

Do you know where the crows are overnight or after sunset in Pittsburgh? If so, please leave a comment with your answer. (We will need this info especially during the week after Christmas.)

p.s. This weekend’s location change can probably be attributed to the weather. Strong west wind vs. weak southwest wind.

  • Sat 3 Dec 5pm: 43 degrees F. West wind gusting over 30 mph. Temperature falling.
  • Sun 4 Dec 5pm: 36 degrees F. SW wind at 6 mph. No wind chill.

(photo and map credits are in the captions; click on the captions to see the originals)

Crows and Ravens Are Back in Town

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens
Raven over Dawson Street near Schenley Park, 23 October 2022, 8:30am (photo by Andrea Lavin Kossis)

26 October 2022

During the summer corvids stay home to raise their families but as soon as the breeding season is over they move around. In autumn large flocks of American crows return to Pittsburgh to join the winter roost while a few common ravens show up, alone or in pairs.

This month the crows and ravens are back in town. Since August their populations have gone through several phases.

Crows flying to the roost, Pittsburgh, 16 Oct 2021 (photo by Kate St. John)

Late August: On 30 August a surprising count of 380 fish crows gathered on rooftops at Fifth & Craig while only 12 American crows were present that evening.

September: By 6 September fish crow numbers dropped from 30 to zero. American crow numbers rose through the hundreds. No ravens.

October so far: On 10 October a high count 620 American crows flew past “the doorknob” water tower at dusk. By late October no crows were counted because they changed their route. However we now see and hear ravens!

The “doorknob” water tower at dusk, Upper Hill, October 2022 (photo by Kate St. John)

Ravens in town?

Crows migrate. Adult ravens stay home year round. However, young ravens go wandering until they reach sexual maturity at three years old. From fall through early spring a handful of these ravens visit Pittsburgh.

Last Sunday 23 October Andrea Lavin Kossis saw two ravens on Dawson Street dining on some “delicious roadkill.” The pair even had something to say about it.

Brock! Brock!

p.s. In December I’ll enlist your help to find the crow roost in time for the Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count.

(photos by Andrea Lavin Kossis and Kate St. John)

Let Me Help You Out of That

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens
Australian magpie, looking at it (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

6 March 2022

Sometimes an experiment doesn’t work as planned but the results are far better than expected.

Researchers wanted to track Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen), a very social species that lives in groups of 2-12 individuals on permanent territories. Rather than use the typical long-lasting harness that requires recapturing the bird to collect the datapack, they designed a harness that would release when exposed to a magnet placed at a feeding station. Would the new harness design work? The first step was to try it on a few magpies and see.

Illustration of novel harness for Australian magpies with magnetic release (image from Australian Field Ornithology 2022, 39, 7–11 http://dx.doi.org/10.20938/afo39007011)

Researchers led by Joel Crampton captured five magpies at Pacific Paradise, Queensland, banded them and fitted each one with a GPS harness. Then they followed the birds to see the harness release at the feeding station.

Each banded bird immediately tried to remove the harness but it was too well designed for that to work. Instead the unexpected occurred. Unbanded magpies came to the rescue.

On the day of trapping, one individual was observed attempting to remove its own tracker but was then approached and aided by another juvenile (without a tracker or coloured leg-band) once again pecking the harness part of the tracker. The tracker remained but, within the next 10 minutes, an adult female (also without a tracker or leg-band) proceeded to approach and successfully pecked the harness at various points such that the tracker came off the fitted juvenile within c. 10 minutes. This first Magpie that had been tagged had its GPS device removed within 1 h.

— Australian Field Ornithology: Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen cooperate to remove tracking devices

This happened over and over again until none of the banded birds had trackers. Here’s a video of the magpies helping each other.

This finding was unexpected but far better than the original experiment. It was the first time anyone had seen rescue behaviour among Australian magpies.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to report the conspecific removal of GPS trackers, and should be considered when planning future tracking studies especially on highly social species.

— Australian Field Ornithology: Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen cooperate to remove tracking devices

“Here,” say the magpies to each other. “Let me help you out of that.”

p.s. A tip of the hat to Michelle Kienholz for pointing out this study.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons, diagram and video from Australian Field Ornithology: Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen cooperate to remove tracking devices; click on the captions to see the originals)

Where There Are No Crows or Jays

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens
Pearly-eyed thrasher on Guana Island, British Virgin Islands (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

24 February 2022

Corvids [crows, jays, magpies] occupy virtually every terrestrial habitat on Earth, including Arctic tundra, arid deserts, urban streets, and tropical rainforest. Having likely dispersed around the world over millions of years from an Australasian core, it is odd that they never reached New Zealand or Patagonia or disappeared from them both.

— Birds of the World: Corvidae account

It’s hard to imagine a place without any crows or jays but it is true of the southern end of South America, New Zealand and quite a few Caribbean and Pacific islands. I learned this seven years ago when I visited a place that has none of them: St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands.

In the absence of intelligent omnivorous corvids, other birds fill their niche. The all-purpose crow/jay/predator at St. John is the pearly-eyed thrasher (Margarops fuscatus) …

… an aggressive, opportunistic omnivore that feeds primarily on large insects, but also feeds on fruits and berries, and will occasionally eat lizards, frogs, small crabs and other bird’s eggs and nestlings.

— Wikipedia: Pearly-eyed Thrasher account

He acts like a jay, hunts like a corvid, and eats like a crow. I think he looks more aggressive than a blue jay. Maybe it’s the pearly eye.

Pearly-eyed thrasher at St. John, USVI (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

On Throw Back Thursday, learn about this thrasher in the corvid niche in this 2015 article:

In The Corvid Niche

What’s New With Pittsburgh’s Crows?

Crows & Ravens
Crow digs in to a baguette (photo by Henry McLin via Flickr Creative Commons license)

27 January 2022

Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock hasn’t been in Oakland and Shadyside for months but they’ve been making a splash on the North Side lately.

On 23 January Cindy Pomorski reported, “I have heard and seen them 2 mornings this week in the trees in the wooded area near the DL Clark building,” on the North Shore near Heinz Field.

That same day crows were photographed on the roof of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headquarters across the Heinz Field parking lot from DL Clark.

And on Tuesday 25 January they hung out at the Heinz Field scoreboard in the snow.

How about those crows? Have you seen them lately?

Tell me about it.

(photo by Henry McLin via Flickr Creative Commons license. This cool crow photo was taken in Hanover, PA, not in Pittsburgh.)

Finding Food in the Cold

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens, Mammals, Trees
Snow scene on 19 January 2022

22 January 2022

I’ve often noticed that in winter there are more birds in the city than the countryside. Though we may not have “quality” birds we make up for it in quantity with large numbers of fruit-eating birds drawn to our ornamental trees.

In the past two weeks hundreds of American robins have been feasting in Oakland. Some of the fruits were inedible until the deep freeze softened them so the robins circled back to finish the Bradford pears last weekend. This week they started on pyracantha berries and the red fruits of this (hawthorn?) tree next to the Cathedral of Learning.

Was half the fruit wasted when birds and squirrels knocked it out of the trees?

Look closely and you can see that deer walked among the fallen fruit. They must have crossed Forbes or Fifth Avenue after dark to browse on the Cathedral of Learning lawn.

Nearby, the sweetgum balls were coated in snow on Monday, all melted by Wednesday.

American goldfinches arrived to pull seeds out of the balls. Some fell on the snow.

And a crow walked by to check it out.

Birds are finding food in the cold.

(photos by Kate St. John)

Found The Crows!

Crows & Ravens
Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock flies past South Oakland on 14 Dec 2020 (photo by Mary DeVaughn)

13 January 2022

Driving home yesterday from northern Pennsylvania I reached the edge of Downtown near the PPG Arena parking lot(*) at 5:35pm. Night was falling but the overcast sky was still lit.

As I drove up the ramp to Bigelow Boulevard three huge flocks of crows burst off the Flag Plaza hilltop (at right below) and swirled overhead to the roof of The Pennsylvanian (left), back and forth.

Location of Pittsburgh’s winter crows on 12 Jan 2022 at dusk, swirling from The Pennsylvanian (left) to the Flag Plaza hilltop (right) (image of Bigelow Blvd ramp from Google Streetview)

When I reached this part of the ramp (below) I could hear poot landing my car. The dark sky was thick with crows.

Location of Pittsburgh’s winter crows on 12 Jan 2022 at dusk, swirling from The Pennsylvanian (left) to the Flag Plaza hilltop (right) (image of Bigelow Blvd ramp from Google Streetview)

It was a scene like this screenshot from Gerry Devinney’s mid-December video, probably 3,000 to 5,000 crows near the Petersen Events Center.

Crows swirl near the mid-Oakland roost, 18 December 2021 (screenshot from video by Gerry Devinney on Vimeo)

I was lucky to find them in another part of town after the crows were a No Show at the Christmas Bird Count. It’s ironic that they are in the same place where the black bear was found before Christmas. Perhaps they are roosting in the Strip District.

View from Flag Plaza in March 2015 (photo by Kate St. John)

If I visit Flag Plaza at dusk will I be able to count them? Nope. Too close. I will have to find a place with a much longer view.

UPDATE ON 22 JAN 2022: They are at the Post-Gazette.

p.s. (*) The PPG Paints Arena parking lot on Centre Ave at Washington Place is torn up by construction on its way to becoming something else. It is the old site of the Civic Arena.

(photos by Mary DeVaughn, Google StreetView, Gerry DeVinney (screenshot) and Kate St. John; click on the captions to see the originals)

Crows Were a No Show at the Christmas Count

Books & Events, Crows & Ravens
Trees at dusk and NO CROWS (photo by Kate St. John in 2017)

6 January 2022

Year after year we’ve counted thousands of crows — up to 20,058! — during Pittsburgh’s Christmas Bird Count so we were stunned when the annual count on 1 January 2022 yielded zero (0!) at the South Oakland roost and only seven crows nearby at dusk. Roosting crows were a No Show at the CBC. Where were they? And why?

The best way to count Pittsburgh’s winter crow flock is to find a good vantage point and count them as they stream into the roost. Before Christmas they roosted in South Oakland, confirmed by my count of at least 5,200 crows near Magee Hospital on 8 December. However on Count Day a number of things went wrong.

Crow counters usually work as a team but my teammate Claire Staples was injured in mid-December and is still recuperating. I tried to recruit others but no one jumped at the chance because …

The weather was warm but extremely rainy and foggy. All the high vantage points were enshrouded in fog so I went to Dan Marino Field in South Oakland where the crows fly by. It poured! I was soaked by relentless rain for an hour while I counted five crows overhead and two cawing in the neighborhood. Yet 220 American robins pulled worms from the mud and sang in the rain. As I drove home I checked the roosting trees near Magee Hospital. No crows anywhere!

Apparently crows change their roosting habits in heavy rain.

Were they still flying to South Oakland? As a partial answer I counted from the roof of my building on 2 January for 20 minutes. In the distance 1,140 crows flew toward South Oakland. Less than I expected. Have they split the roost into several locations?

The crows are here somewhere. Have you seen them? Where?

UPDATE: Gerry Devinney filmed a huge flock of crows near the Petersen Events center on 18 December.

On Throw Back Thursday here’s a look back at the Good Old Days of 2012 when it was possible to count 20,000 crows.

20,000 Crows!

How Can You Tell It’s A Fish Crow?

Crows & Ravens
Fish crow in Mississauga (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

19 December 2021

Fish crows (Corvus ossifragus) are a relatively recent addition to the corvid species found in western Pennsylvania. Most people don’t realize they’re here because fish crows look nearly identical to American crows (Corvus brachyrhyncos).

But now that it’s Christmas Bird Count Season (Tues 14 Dec 2021 through Wed 5 January 2022) we have to identify the fish crows among Pittsburgh’s winter flock of American crows. How can you tell when you see a fish crow? The only reliable way is by the sound of his voice.

We all know that the American crow says “Caw! Caw!”

American crow (Covus brachyrhyncos) from Xeno Canto # XC626214

The fish crow sounds different with his “baby” voice. Sometimes he says “Uh oh.”

Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus) from Xeno Canto # XC459772

Get some practice listening to fish crows in Zack Chen’s video.

Good luck counting them, though. You can tell fish crows are present by sound but it’s really hard to count the voices!

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; embedded video by Zack Chen on YouTube)

The Crows Saw It First

Bird Behavior, Crows & Ravens
American crows watch from a roof (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

13 December 2021

If something doesn’t look right, crows are quick to point it out and warn each other.

Ten years ago Pittsburgh’s winter flock saw something very disturbing and circled above it in the half light before dawn. “Watch out! Watch out! It’s dead! Watch out!”

Three hours later a person discovered the disturbing scene. It prompted an investigation.

The crows saw it first. Here’s the story.

The Crows Know

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)