[obol] Crows in Wheeler County (murderously long and tedious)
- From: Joel Geier <joel.geier@xxxxxxxx>
- To: Oregon Birders OnLine <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Central Oregon Birders <cobol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 07:57:06 -0700
Hi all,
Perhaps I shouldn't have used the term "tough species" in describing the
likelihood of finding American Crow on a field trip to Wheeler County,
as this term conjures up a specter of difficulty in the context of
county listing. It would have been better to describe them as "a very
easy species to miss" for a field trip such as Judy described.
If you make an effort to find crows in Wheeler County in the course of 4
or 5 visits over the course of a year, you should be able to find at
least a few, especially if you spend time in the agricultural lands
along the John Day River.
Perhaps I should also note that my personal experience in Wheeler County
mainly pertains to the south half. As with Judy's field trip, I tend to
visit the county by way of Prineville, and southern Wheeler Co. is what
you come to first. I've only ventured north of the John Day River a
handful of times, and have been in Fossil and Spray just once or twice.
But it turns out that I've seen three decent-sized flocks of crows, at
least if I believe my records in www.birdnotes.net:
55 in pasture at Twickenham (Sep 16 2000)
25 kettling with ravens over Mountain Creek Valley (May 10 2002)
20 in plowed field off Hwy 26 near West Branch Rd (Dec 21-25 2004)
The first two of these flocks are included in the NAMC totals that Paul
posted. In retrospect I have some doubts about my report of the second
flock (which is the one I'd forgotten about), since my recollection is
that they were pretty high up, it was late in the day, and I was
straining a bit to pick them out. But anyway, that's how I recorded
them.
In addition I've recorded smaller numbers of crows in that part of
Oregon a few times (including the adjacent part of Grant County):
5 in field along Keyes Creek grade e. of Mitchell (Nov 22 2000)
2 at Cant Ranch in Grant Co. (Apr 23 2000)
1 At ranch near along Hwy 26 near West Branch Rd. (May 12 2001)
1 w. of Dayville just se. of Antone CBC circle (Dec 10 2001)
2 in field a bit east of West Branch Rd. (Sep 27 2004)
In contrast, Common Raven shows up on about 100 lists that I recorded in
Wheeler County during that same span of time.
To get a better sample, I've pulled together NAMC data from a few more
counts in addition to the ones that Paul listed data for.
Here are the crow:raven ratios for those counts, ordered from least to
most crow detections:
Sp 2004 0:44
F 2002 0:29
Sp 2006 0:29
Sp 2005 0:24
F 2001 0:16
Sp 2001 3:30
F 2003 3:29
Sp 1998 3:21
Sp 2003 6:43
Sp 2000 6: 7
S 1999 25:20
F 2004 26:16
Sp 2002 30:61 (include my dubious kettling flock of 25)
F 2000 55:41 (includes flock of 55 at Twickenham as mentioned)
In 5 of 14 counts, no crows were found. In 10 of 14 counts, no more than
six crows were found. The crow:raven ratio for those ten counts is
roughly 2 crows for every 27 ravens.
To sum up: If I were leading a field trip from Bend to Wheeler County
and wanted to maximize the day list, I'd make sure to record American
Crow before we left the parking lot.
In fact, some of the folks who joined the OFO field trip from Bend to
Painted Hills about 7 years back might remember we (ahem) crowed about
the crows in downtown Bend, as we headed out at dawn.
Happy birding,
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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