{"id":770,"date":"2011-08-19T18:17:35","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T18:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/compostvisitation\/"},"modified":"2013-06-26T09:58:15","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T13:58:15","slug":"american-crow-corvus-brachyrhynchos","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/compostvisitation\/birds\/american-crow-corvus-brachyrhynchos\/","title":{"rendered":"American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos<\/em>)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Order:<\/strong> Passeriformes, \u00a0Family:<\/strong> Corvidae<\/p>\n

Appearance\/Behavior<\/strong>: The American crow (43 – 53 cm) has entirely black plumage, black legs, and black bill.\u00a0 In flight, the trailing edge of the tail is straight, resulting in a fan-shape.\u00a0 Crows are very social birds, appearing at the compost piles in groups ranging from one to nine.\u00a0 Crows will sometime burrow into the pile as they forage.\u00a0 In the mid-summer, interactions between begging offspring and adults have been documented.\u00a0 Visits of red-shouldered hawks often coincide with crow encounters.\u00a0 Furthermore, gray squirrel activity around the compost piles often takes place while crows are foraging on the pile itself.<\/p>\n

Relative Frequency of Visitation in Study<\/strong>: Extremely abundant.<\/p>\n

Seasonal Activity<\/strong>:\u00a0 Year-round.<\/p>\n

Daily Activity<\/strong>:\u00a0 Strictly diurnal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Similar Species<\/strong>:\u00a0 In the compost study, only one other species attending the piles has the American crow\u2019s dominant black coloration.\u00a0 That is the adult common grackle<\/a>, a much smaller bird, with a proportionately thinner beak.\u00a0 Within the region of the study site, there are two congeners <\/a>of the American crow that could be potentially confused with it:\u00a0 the common raven<\/a> (Corvus corax<\/em>) and the fish crow<\/a> (C. ossifragus<\/em>).\u00a0 The raven is a larger bird (61 cm), with a thicker bill than the American crow.\u00a0 In flight, the trailing edge of the raven\u2019s tail is convex, providing a wedge-shaped appearance.\u00a0 The fish crow is smaller (39 cm) and has a proportionately longer tail than the American crow.\u00a0 Although ravens have been heard flying in the distance at the study site, none have actually been seen on the ground.\u00a0 Fish crows don\u2019t venture far from the Connecticut River valley (about 20 km to the west) and the shore of Long Island Sound (about 45 km to the south).<\/p>\n

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Well-defined Images: <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Challenging Images: <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Help with challenging images: Rows 1-2<\/a>, Rows 3-4<\/a>, Rows 5-6<\/a>, Rows 7-8<\/a><\/p>\n

Near Video:<\/strong><\/p>\n\t