Back to the Cacophony of Crows

Crows, a bird we can all identify, a bird that we can imitate easily,and a bird that when in its home gang, (which by the way, is called a "murder" of crows), can make such a racket that you have to wonder, what *on* earth is going on. And believe me, when the volume raises to a raucous pitch, something IS going on and it's worth your while to drop what you are doing and see what all the fuss is about.

Today, the family of crows that claim the stretch of railroad tracks at the bog as their own, were calling and cawing wildly and I expected to find a resident hawk taking his morning harassment, but instead, there was alone turkey strutting down the center of the tracks, calm as could be. Must have been the novelty of it that had them so excited. Noisy though they were, it didn't elicit any of the dive bombing, call out ALL the forces, sort of treatment that a hawk or an owl often get.

Which is what a friend of mine and I witnessed the other day at the Game Farm. An all out, 5 alarm cry that brought crows streaming in from every direction to dive bomb and shout murderous threats at what looked like, from our earthbound view ,to just be a huge squirrels nest. But no squirrel would get this sort of attention. We both felt there had to be an owl on top of the nest, wishing he had chosen somewhere more private to sleep the morning away. And the reason we guess it was an owl is because usually a hawk will be flushed out and move on, whereas owls seem to hold their ground. And owls seem to elicit this hysteria more than hawks, at least in my experience. Because we always like to think of the *most* exciting explanation we were hoping it was a nesting owl, but no pellets on the ground, no white wash around, so probably just an owl in search of shuteye, which it definitely wasn't getting. We cycled by the same tree on the way back and this time a family of jays was whooping it up, doing their own little dive bomb number at the same tree. It must have still been there. Oh for a helicopter when you need one! So today's urging is to listen for the cacophony of crows. Hawks are streaming back to the Cape and will soon be nesting, giving any crow who discovers them a chance to go verbally ballistic, and you a chance to see where the nests might be. Which, in the end, we must really thank them for. I'll be all ears to hear what you hear in the next few weeks, and see.

Pat, not so briefly this time!