Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 21:12:30 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: Re: S. Frederick Cty, 7/21 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The crow roost at White Flint shopping mall in North Bethesda is about 10% Fish Crows. On the Seneca Christmas Count we regularly see thousands of Crows of both species heading toward Frederick County in the morning and returning at night. When I was a college student in the 50's near Emmitsburg in upper Frederick Co. we regularly saw small flocks of Fish Crows foraging in corn stubble fields. There were no juveniles, technically speaking, in mid-winter, so the ID of Fish Crows by voice was not a problem. In fact, on the Christmas Counts I can see the Fish Crows coming before actually hearing them. They are obviously smaller than the American Crows and exhibit a faster, shallower wingbeat. These characters are readily apparent in mixed flocks. So, yes, Fish Crows are to be expected in Frederick Co. You thought I'd never get there, didn't you. By the way, as the White Flint roost breaks up for the breeding season, the American Crows disperse first, so that the last flocks in the spring flying up-county and farther consist entirely of Fish Crows. And in the fall, the Fish Crows are the first to begin using the roost. So you have two opportunities per year to study Fish Crows in monospecific flocks. They have been flying right over my house for the past 37 years. It was just last year that I finally noticed the segregation of species at the two ends of the roost period. Groan. Paul O'Brien Rockville, Mont. Co., MD pobrien776@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================