Towheeblog

Our species has evolved from Cro-Magnon to Crow Magnet:
” We suggest that crows and ravens have culture and that cultural evolution is an important reason why they live so successfully with humans… Our closeness to many crow species causes us to continually shape crow culture. Indeed, the speed with which we change the environment and the dangers we pose gives cultural evolution an edge over genetic evolution.”
–IN THE COMPANY OF CROWS AND RAVENS. By John Marzluff and Tony Angell

Last summer a man brought his lunch to our local park on his lunch-hour. He had small fold-up table where he laid his wrapped sandwich, large cylinder of cold drink and bag of chips. The n he went for a brisk pre-prandial walk. As soon as he was fifty feet away, a pair of crows fly down, checked out the menu, air-lifted the chips bag and flew off to tear it open and have their own lunch-hour celebration.

Un-persecuted, not shot, urban crows do well around our species. Quick, smart, adaptable, spreading information among their own species, crows thrive. In some parts of Portland, Oregon, they seem to out-number people. Portland has turned to other birds to help disperse some of the crows gathered in the downtown area–click here.
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In Bill Madison’s San Francisco back garden:

ANKENY’S MOTUS ROBIN

So we now know this bird–tagged near Vancouver, BC, last fall, was around Ankeny Nature Center (within ten miles or so) for eight straight days earlier this month. Last picked up on Jan. 18th our time. This chart is in international time so it is seven hours ahead of Pacific Daylight where we are now. 3:00 on 19th is thus 8 PM Pacific DT, Jan. 18th.