Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!gatech!prism!vsserv!loligo!sandee
From: sandee@loligo (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Northwestern Crow
Message-ID: <189@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 12 Sep 89 23:03:15 GMT
References: <1480@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@vsserv.scri.fsu.edu
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Organization: Supercomputer Institute, FSU
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In article <1480@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> dune@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (sandon.l.joren) writes:
>I just returned from a (much too brief) trip to Oregon.  Although I only
>had one day to bird, I did manage to get a number (10) of life birds.  One
>question I have though;  what is the status of the Northwestern Crow in 
>Northern Oregon, along the coast.  My range maps and descriptions mention
>that it is only south to Puget Sound, and I have been told that even there,
>most of them are hybrids.  Many of the crows that I saw in Ecola Park however,
>had a much more nasal call than I am used to.  In fact, they sounded much like
>Fish Crows!
I just came back from a week in the NW, and (having read your message) checked
up on the crows. ALL crows on the Washington coast (from San Juan Islands to
the Columbia River) looked and sounded different from the American crow : 
smaller, and a nasal call (As a resident of Florida, I have considerable
experience with Fish Crows. They make a totally different, nasal, ah-ha call).
I couldn't really see anything like a cline. But I do take somebody else's
point that juvenile Am. Crows have a more nasal call.
Having now seen and heard them myself, I side with the people that say it's
a different bird. It's up to the behaviorists and the DNA experts to say
if it's a different species - I'm willing to accept their decisions, which
lost us a lot of nice birds already, like the junco's.
>
>Other lifers included Tufted Puffin and Pigeon Guillemot at Haystack Rock,
>Glaucous-winged and California Gull, Bushtit, Steller's Jay, Vaux's Swift,
>Pelagic Cormorant, and Band-tailed Pigeon.  (Yes, it was only my second
>trip out west :-)).
>
Well, it was my seventh trip, but my first North of San Francisco. So I got
a lot of NW specials. Cape Flattery was great, once the fog lifted. I spent
hours looking at Tufted Puffins from close by, and Pigeon Guillemots,
Marbled Murrelets, Black Swift, Harlequin Duck, cormorants, loons, etc,
and a bald eagle 20 ft overhead. And in the mountains I found just two
woodpeckers. You won't believe it, but they were both black-backed.
The other highlight was the North pier of both Gray's harbor and of the
Columbia River. It was definitely worth it to clamber out at the risk of
life and limb and watch hundreds and hundreds of sooty shearwaters from
close by (the nearest at 150 ft, which is incredibly close from dry land).
There were also still Brandt's cormorants available at the colony at the
Lewis and Clark memorial at the mouth of the Columbia.

Daan Sandee
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL          sandee@sun6.scri.fsu.edu